Some of Traherne’s most beloved, puzzling and sometimes polarizing prose comes from the early meditations of the Centuries’ third century. Traherne’s account of his own childhood innocence which enabled ‘Those pure and virgin apprehensions I had from the womb’, are both consonant with some of the literary and theological currents described above and possibly at odds with Augustinian understandings of the child as a fallen creature. K.W. Salter drew close parallels between Traherne’s thought on original sin and the need for divine grace and the thought of Pelagius,11 but it should be mentioned that he wrote before the
discovery of some of the key manuscript evidence noted below. A more fruitful approach is taken by Patrick Grant, who locates Traherne in the Irenaean school, taking pains to show the many connections between the two thinkers.12 Edmund Newey agrees with this approach,
stating that ‘the importance of Irenaeus to Traherne cannot be doubted’ as is witnessed in
10 Centuries, III, 2.
11 See Keith W. Salter, Thomas Traherne: Mystic and Poet (London: E Arnold, 1964), 130–135. 12 For an extended exploration of Iranaeus’ Christology and Soteriology see chapter six in Grant, The
Traherne’s many explicitly or implicitly references to Irenaeus’ Against Heresies in his
Roman Forgeries; which is an indictment on Salter’s Pelagian reading, for this work was
published in Traherne’s lifetime. Newey, though affirming Traherne’s indebtedness to Irenaeus, argues against the type of dichotomous interpretation of Traherne, whereby the Augustinian and Pauline elements of his theology are marginalized in favor the Irenaean elements. Instead, Newey, points to passages in Christian Ethicks, Select Meditations and
Kingdom of God where Traherne speaks of original sin in ways similar to Augustin and even
Calvin. In Christian Ethicks Traherne calls Adam’s ‘Posterity’ ‘born Sinners’ who ‘never were sensible of the Light and Glory of an Innocent Estate’, and in Kingdom of God Traherne speaks of the ‘Blindness of my Childhood’ and the mistakes of ‘Childish Apprehensions [that] take Lustre, and Splendour to be the Greatest Glory, because it most affecteth the Ey with Material Beauty.13 We can bracket this second quote from Kingdom of God because its
usage of the term ‘Childish’ bears the negatives associated with childhood, denoting immaturity and ignorance. What is curious about the first quote calling all of Adam’s posterity ‘born sinners’ is that it seems to conflict with Traherne’s claim from the Centuries that he had ‘Those pure and virgin apprehensions… from the womb’. This seems to align more closely with Iranaeus’ idea that the child, like Adam, is born into childhood
innocence,14 but the quote from Christian Ethicks seems to be more Augustinian; what, then,
are we to do with these two strands of Traherne’s thought? In response, Newey seeks to move the discussion away from the apparent theological tension by claiming Traherne’s usage of the child is not simply to be seen as an emblem of the historical estate of innocence but instead Traherne sees the child as ‘an icon of the whole human condition, from the natural childhood enjoyed by Adam and Eve before the Fall to the more wonderful adoptive relationship with God brought about in Christ.’15 Agreeing with Newey’s separation of
childhood from innocence, Elizabeth Dodd claims that Traherne’s usage of the idea of innocence is also not to be understood as a simple ‘return to childhood’, or return to a prelapsarian innocence, instead, like the child, innocence is to be seen as operative in all the estates.16
13 Newey, “‘God Made Man Greater When He Made Him Less,’” 233. 14 Grant, The Transformation of Sin, 186.
15 Newey, “‘God Made Man Greater When He Made Him Less,’” 235.
16 Elizabeth S. Dodd, Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne’s Poetic Theology: “Were All Men
What Dodd offers to our current theological question – regarding the Augustinian, Irenaean, and possibly Pelagian strands of Traherne’s language of childhood innocence and guilt – is to claim that the innocence of the first estate is a ‘graced innocence’, received by the child through the sacramental regeneration of infant baptism. That this is a ‘graced
innocence’ and not a natural innocence (therefore not Pelagian) is evidenced in Traherne’s Augustinian claims that all are ‘born sinners’ as seen above, to which Dodd adds from Traherne’s Churches Year-Book: ‘No Child is so Contemptible and polluted in the Dungeons of the Womb, As I was then.’17 Dodd, points to Traherne’s entry entitled ‘Baptism’ in
Commentaries to show that Traherne believed in both baptismal regeneration and the
legitimacy of infant baptism over and against the Anabaptist John Tombes, who wrote a ‘three-part treatise against paedobaptism.’18 In the Commentaries, Traherne claims that ‘evry
one [is] Regenerated, that is Baptized, in a Sacramental Maner.’ It is sacramental in nature because the end of baptism ‘is not to Sanctify us; but to signify to us the Mysterious Maner of our Sanctification.’ As a signifier, baptism outwardly reveals an inward reality brought about primarily through repentance and belief: ‘A man is converted, regenerated, illuminated, New born and Sanctified, when he is changed within, when he repents and believs…not when he is sprinkled with Water without doing these.’ ‘Nevertheless’ we receive baptism in a
‘Sacramental Maner’ because as ‘the Bread is said to be our Saviors Body, or the Wine his Blood’, in baptism ‘he is said to be buried with Christ by Baptism into his Death, to be regenerated therin, and made a child of God a Member of Christ, and an Heir of the Kingdom of Heaven’.19 The heirship of the infant is pointed to throughout Traherne’s works as we will
see below, and is made theologically viable for Traherne as he argues that baptism functions in the same way in the church as circumcision functioned in the covenant with Abraham:
Baptism came into the Church in the Place of Circumcision: which was a Seal of the Covenant of Grace made to Abraham and his Children. As therefore on the one side our Children may be Baptized, and it is Impietie to forbid them; so on the other side we must not ascribe more to Baptism then the Apostle did to Circumcision. It is a Clearer Sacrament, but does not give the Person Baptized the least Libertie or Security in Sin.20
For Traherne, the door is wide as to who can receive baptism, but no guarantee of the perseverance of the baptized is offered in this sacrament. To further argue against the
17 Traherne, Churches Year Book, 163, as quoted in Ibid., 95. 18 Ibid., 96.
19 ‘Baptism’, Commentaries, Vol. 3, 449-450. 20 Ibid., 450-1.
‘Anabaptists’, Traherne offers another argument for infant baptism when he deduces from Jesus’ words in Matthew 19.14 – ‘Suffer litle children to com unto me, and forbid them not,
for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven’ – that ‘He received them, layed his Hands on them,
and blessed them, before they actualy repented or believed’ and in so doing this ‘makes a Distinction between Men and Infants, and deals with both according to their Capacitie.’21
For, Traherne, baptism is offered to an infant as a sign of their inclusion in the community of faith, which makes them a ‘child of God a Member of Christ, and an Heir of the Kingdom of God’.22 However, baptism also makes a moral claim on the infant, for if they fail to keep
their vows this baptismal blessing may be lost: ‘A Heathen cannot, but an Infant Baptized may become an Apostate.’23 If Traherne carries over this quasi-technical definition of
apostate as one who has fallen away after having been baptized, it is curious to note that he defines the loss of the pure apprehensions of infancy as ‘my Apostasy’ in the seemingly Pelagian account in the Centuries: ‘I knew by intuition those things which since my Apostasy, I collected again by the highest reason.’24 The overall impression one gets while
reading this third century is that innocence is something bestowed naturally to the newborn infant – ‘Those pure and virgin apprehensions I had from the womb, and that divine light wherewith I was born…’25 – but Traherne’s usage of the language of apostasy at least leaves
space to find even in the Centuries a gesture toward this innocence being ‘graced’, received
via infant baptism.
For Traherne, according to Dodd, ‘Baptismal regeneration is the model of graced innocence. The graced, rather than natural innocence of the baptised child provides a foundation for Christian living.’26 I agree with Dodd and Newey, that for Traherne both the
child and innocence denote not a simple return to the natural innocence of childhood, but are ideas and tropes in Traherne that are operative in the entire Christian journey. As we will notice below, when Traherne speaks of a return to the Eden-like estate of the innocent child, his primary concern is growth in the purity of soul and clarity of apprehensions represented
21 Ibid., 451.
22 See Sober View, 81 for a repeat of this argument. A marginal note in the pen of a critical reader
speaks to contemporary opposition to Traherne’s view: ‘Tho: I beleeve this most Congruous to Truth…you will find thos much Opposed’.
23 ‘Baptism’, Commentaries, 453. 24 Centuries, III, 2.
25 Centuries, III, 1.
by the infant, which finds it end in the ‘Beatific Vision’ not in Eden. I also agree with Dodd, in showing that infant baptism is the sacramental basis for reconciling Traherne’s claims for childhood innocence in the Centuries and the poetry with the affirmation of original sin found elsewhere. Though calling childhood innocence a graced innocence makes sense of both of these Trahernian strands, Traherne’s strong emphasis on nature as a gift from God should caution us from making too much of the distinction between nature and grace in his thought.27 For Traherne, free grace is the fountain of all of God’s actions toward creation –
‘as free Grace was the fountain of the Creation, and of the Redemption, so we see it the Fountain of the Sanctification of the World’28 – while within the sphere of redemption and
sanctification he points to the need for an additional gift of ‘Special Grace’ to ‘walk in the Commandments of God’, therefore we ask for this grace ‘by Diligent Prayer.’ It is the God- given, natural, Biblical mandate to pray, that opens up the heavenly sanctifying grace to the one in the natural state of prevenient grace: ‘Prayer is the Key of Heaven by which we unlock the Heavenly Treasurie, and derive those things to our selvs which by Nature we cannot have: It is the Jacobs Ladder by which we Ascend: that we may receiv all Heavenly Gifts of Knowledge and Grace.’29 Whether the estate of innocence is technically natural or graced, to
‘Ascend’ ‘Jacobs Ladder’ necessitates prayer, a free movement of the will to ask for divine aid.
What the above cautions the reader of Traherne from doing is attempting to read him and understand him through a single theological lens, or by simply working with a single text. In Traherne we find that his wide reading, his varied use of genre, and his varied
purposes in writing these texts contribute to the eclecticism of Traherne’s oeuvre and act as a reminder that we must place his various works in conversation (in this case the Centuries alongside the Commentaries et al), if we want a fuller picture of his thought. Doing this, however, often identifies tensions between these texts that may or may not be reconcilable. Our attempt above, to ease the tension between the Irenaean elements in the Centuries and poetry, and the Augustinian elements found elsewhere, by positing innocence as a ‘grace innocence’, are offered tentatively so as not to diminish the unique poetic and theological impact of each individual text.
27 For a long discussion of Traherne’s blurring of the boundaries between nature and grace see Ibid.,
59–67. For a discussion of gift in Traherne see Mark A. McIntosh, Discernment and Truth (New York: Independent Publishers Group, 2004), 245.
28 Sober View, 76. 29 Ibid., 81.
Noting these tensions – and noting again Traherne’s usage of Irenaeus’ Against
Heresies in his Roman Forgeries – we turn again to Traherne and Irenaeus’ ideas on
childhood innocence, which converge on many levels, and echo some of the points we made regarding the soul in the previous chapter. As Grant argues, for both thinkers, ‘Adam’s paradisal situation is that of an innocent child, a special creature of God whose fulfillment is to become godlike’,30 and like Adam, the child’s vision remains ‘intact in its innocence,
though at a distance from God, to whom the infant must grow.’31 As we have observed, the
soul as the image of God in power must be brought to maturity as it is transformed into the image in act, for this is the proper teleology of the human will. Following Newey and Dodd’s arguments above (which integrates both the Irenaean and Augustinian strands in Traherne) we call the innocence in Traherne’s autobiographical statements in the Centuries a graced innocence. According to Dodd (and others) this graced innocence is a provisional state which warrants ‘a progression to a new and higher innocence.’32 These claims of a ‘new and higher
innocence’ should be read in the context of Traherne’s power/act distinction. This higher innocence accompanies the soul that has become fully actualized in glory. Similarly, as we saw above, Newey calls the child ‘not simply a recollected authorial self, but at once a poetic trope and a theological icon’, for ‘the child is not simply emblematic of the first of these estates, but shares in them all…’33 As a poetic trope, Newey reminds the reader to consider
the literary currency of the idea of childhood innocence in seventeenth century poetics as noted above by Dreher and others, while also noting the theological significance of the child as an icon of the Christian as adopted into God’s family. I agree with Newey on both these points, for the notion of adoption makes the most sense of Traherne’s insistence of being ‘sole heir of the World.’ What I will emphasize here, however, – especially as we explore the
Centuries’ third century – is the way the child functions as a theological icon of purity; the
purity of soul which enables the purity of apprehensions. Purity of sight will be the lens through which we explore Traherne’s understanding of the estates.
The innocence of the child is a grace innocence, received through baptism, but since this is a provisional innocence Traherne reminds his reader that ‘All they that are baptized
30 Grant, The Transformation of Sin, 192. 31 Ibid., 187.
32 Elizabeth S. Dodd, Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne’s Poetic Theology, 56. Thomas
Traherne, Happiness and Holiness: Thomas Traherne and His Writings, ed. Denise Inge, Canterbury studies in spiritual theology (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2008), 148–149. Kershaw, “The Poetic of the Cosmic Christ in Thomas Traherne’s The Kingdom of God,” 184–186.
ought to remember and keep their vows. A Heathen cannot, but an Infant Baptized may become an Apostate.’34 The baptized child is inaugurated into an estate of graced innocence
but for Traherne this innocence is something which can be lost (in apostasy) and is to be found, but the innocence to be found is not a simple return to ‘Eden’ but the fruition of innocence in glory; the image of God transformed into act. So for Traherne, childlike
innocence is both an estate which is lost on the soul’s historical and linear journey toward the beatific vision, and a key element of the life of faith. For this reason, Traherne explains in
Commentaries of Heaven, ‘the Estate of Man in Eden’ is to be contemplated and desired for it
forms the ‘Patern of our Life on Earth’:
the Estate of Man in Eden compared to that of Glory differeth as much as Infancy from perfect Manhood, yet is that Estate the Patern of our Life on Earth, to which here beneath we ought to aspire, to which all Wisdom directs, and felicity allures. For the first things are the most perfect, and the Rule of them that follow. Hence is it that we are Commanded, to consider from whence we are falne, and to repent. Rev. 2. That is to remember all the Beauty and Glory to which we were ordained and to lead that Kind of Life which in Paradice was provided, leaving all the Vanities and Disorders of this present evil World.35
So we turn now to the ‘Estate of Man in Eden’ – the paradisal life of innocence – for to do so is to turn to ‘the Patern of our Life on Earth’, which as the ‘Patern’ provides the standard we are to measure our lives by. As we turn to the estate of innocence, we will build on Newey’s exploration of the child and Dodd’s analysis of innocence by showing that – for the purposes of my argument – Traherne’s innocent child is primarily to be seen as an image of purity; the image of the pure soul with pure and true apprehensions. He states in the Centuries: ‘Our Saviour’s meaning, when He said, He must be born again and become a little child that will
enter into the Kingdom of Heaven is deeper far than is generally believed. It is not only in a
careless reliance upon Divine Providence, that we are to become little children,…but in the peace and purity of all our soul.’ As he continues, this peace and purity are seen to be
expressed in the infant’s purity of habits, of mind and of sight, which for the adult are gained when we ‘disrobe’ and ‘unclothe our souls of evil habits’:
For we must disrobe ourselves of all false colours, and unclothe our souls of evil habits; all our thoughts must be infant-like and clear; the powers of our souls free from the leaven of this world, and disentangled from men’s conceits and customs. Grit in the eye or yellow jaundice will not let a man see those objects truly that are before it.36
34 ‘Baptism’, Commentaries, 543.
35 ‘The Second Adam’, Commentaries, 228. 36 Centuries, III, 5.
The purity of soul and purity of sight are inextricably linked for Traherne. This is a belief not original to Traherne, for we could read this and what is to follow as a long commentary on the following beatitude in Jesus’ Sermon the Mount: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.’37 Traherne’s infant-like thoughts and apprehensions constitute a pure vision
that is able to see ‘those objects truly that are before it,’ which, as we have argued, reveals the divine. It is the purity of apprehension, and the soul’s perception of beauty that we will analyze as we continue.
4.2.2. The Estate of Innocence: ‘Those pure and virgin apprehensions I had from the