95. Mere Christianity by CS Lewis

Mere Christianity consists of a collection of radio talks on the central precepts of Christianity, broadcast by Lewis from 1941-44. The words ‘mere Christanity’ – which do not appear anywhere in any of the talks – were an echo of a phrase in an obscure work by the 17th-century theologian Richard Baxter, who in his had used the word ‘meer’ in its archaic sense of ‘essential’, ‘pure’:

I am a CHRISTIAN, a MEER CHRISTIAN, of no other Religion; and the Church that I am of is the Christian Church… I am against all Sects and dividing Parties: But if any will call Meer Christians by the name of a Party, because they take up with Meer Christianity, Creed, and Scripture, and will not be of any dividing or contentious Sect, I am of that Party which is so against Parties.

(This odd – to modern ears – use of the word ‘mere’ in fact survived into the nineteenth century, as can be seen from a quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper for January 3, 1874, in which he is reported to have described the poet Swinburne as a ‘perfect leper’ and a ‘mere [i.e. thoroughgoing] sodomite’.)

It is unlikely that Lewis intended ‘mere’ to have any of its modern meaning of ‘only’ or ‘just’, even in irony: he didn’t mean to say ‘oh, it’s just Christianity, nothing more.’ The talks have no sense either of downplaying Christianity or of defending Christianity from those who might seek to trivialize it.

So why use it, when it would almost certainly be misunderstood? The use of the archaic word stands in marked contrast to the talks themselves, which are composed in a deliberately clear and demotic manner, as if addressed to enquiring factory-hands.

My explanation is this: the obscurantist in Lewis – let’s not forget he was a professor of Anglo-Saxon literature at Oxford, and a connoisseur of the arcane – was in mild rebellion against the transparency of his own text. He could not resist one donnish flourish. If the talks were clear, he wished to make their title, at least, a little bit puzzling.

Consulted:
Dexter, G: Poisoned Pens (2009)
Hooper, W and Green, RL: CS Lewis (1974)
http://www.theologian.org.uk/churchhistory/baxterianae.html