John Norris and the Oratorians: belief and the Images in God

Abstract

The externals of John Norris’s (1657–1711) biography are unspectacular. His tombstone bears the words ‘Bene latuit’¹ and the assessment is apt: Norris shunned fame and glory, sought retirement and solitude, and seems to have resented even the intrusions of the small number of his parishioners at the tiny living of Bemerton—‘ It’s too busy here’, was the burden of his complaint.² His writings, and there are plenty of them, have managed in turn to conform to the retiring habits of their author, and have followed him fairly successfully into obscurity. Yet for a while Norris had been read by an interested public, and his works have been always available in many editions for scholars or others who may have wanted to take him up.³ Few have cared to do so, and it may be that the world has been hard on John Norris.⁴