“AMAZING GRACE THAT SAVED A WRETCH LIKE ME”. CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS FOR GRACE IN CHRISTIAN DISCOURSE (ON THE BASIS OF JOHN HENRY NEWMAN’S SERMONS)

Although Amazing Grace has become a popular song associated with the Englishspeakingculture, the notion of GRACE itself remains mysterious and vague.The problem is that being an abstract notion, grace is difficult to understand and describeeven for theologians. This problem may be overcome by conceptual metaphors whichhelp us conceptualize and understand the abstract reality [Lakoff, Johnson 2003/1980/;Kövecses 2010/2002/]. John Henry Newman’s Parochial and Plain Sermons [1834--1843] constitutes a set of eight volumes of sermons preached in the years 1828-1845in St. Mary’s Church in Oxford by an outstanding Anglican philosopher, theologian,writer, and academic of the Victorian era, who later converted to Roman Catholicism.The article focuses on the cognitive-linguistic aspects of identification and classificationof the various conceptual metaphors for GRACE in Newman’s sermons. The metaphorsare illustrated with examples of the lexical correlates found in the analyzed material.In his sermons, Newman conceptualizes grace metaphorically either as different kindsof INANIMATE THINGS: A CONTAINER, AN INSTRUMENT or MEANS, A GARMENT,A TREASURE and A GIFT, as A TRADED COMMODITY, A LIQUID, FOOD AND DRINK,and A BUILDING, as A PLANT, or as A PERSON: A KING, AN INHABITANT of a humanbeing or the Church, as AN OPPONENT or ENEMY, as A GUIDE IN A JOURNEY,and as A PARENT. Additionally, GRACE is metaphorically viewed in the studied workas POWER, as A WAY IN A JOURNEY, and as LIGHT.