In his Apology of the Church of England as well as many of his other works, John Jewel defended t... more In his Apology of the Church of England as well as many of his other works, John Jewel defended the orthodoxy of the Elizabethan Church on the basis of the following criteria: Scripture, the first four general councils, the writings of the Church Fathers, and the example of the primitive church.1 By emphasizing these authorities, the bishop of Salisbury also sought to impeach the Roman Church’s claim to orthodoxy by arguing that doctrines and practices which developed subsequently to the early church as defined by these criteria contradict them, thereby nullifying its charge of heresy against Protestants while simultaneously indicting the papacy itself as heretical. A question that emerges from studying Jewel’s prodigious polemical works concerns the source of this means of determining orthodoxy. Answering this question requires a close analysis of the apologist’s use of sources. This article will attempt to answer this question by arguing that this criteria for defining orthodoxy d...
This article will examine the role the first four ecumenical councils played in the controversial... more This article will examine the role the first four ecumenical councils played in the controversial enterprises of John Jewel (1522-71) as well as two later early modern English theologians, Richard Hooker (1553-1600) and George Carleton (1559-1628). In three different polemical contexts, each divine portrays the councils as representing definitive catholic consensus not only for doctrine, but also ecclesiastical order and governance. For all three of these theologians, the manner in which the first four ecumenical councils were summoned and conducted, as well as their enactments touching the Church’s life provided patristic norms for its rightful administration. Jewel, Hooker, and Carleton each argued that the English Protestant national Church as defined by the Elizabethan Settlement exemplified a faithful recovery of patristic conciliar ecclesiastical government as an essential component in England’s overall endeavor to return to the true Church Catholic. Jewel employed these counc...
John Jewel, regarded as the principal apologist and theologian for the Elizabethan Church, was al... more John Jewel, regarded as the principal apologist and theologian for the Elizabethan Church, was also esteemed as one of England’s most important (if not the most important) authority on the subject of usury, and therefore was cited frequently by opponents of usury towards the end of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth century. One of the most sustained interpretations of Jewel as a theologian on the subject of usury was by Christoph Jelinger, who observed that the late bishop of Sarum employed the same theological method in opposing usury as he did in defending the doctrines and practices of the Church of England against its Catholic opponents, that is, by appealing to the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, Church Councils, and the example of the primitive church. This article seeks to confirm the opinion of Jelinger, and in doing so show that Jewel’s opposition to usury stemmed primarily from the conviction that it was both a vice and heresy that eroded the unifying at...
‘By Force of Participation and Conjunction in Him’: John Jewel and Richard Hooker on Union with Christ
Perichoresis, 2014
The author of a Christian Letter cited a passage from John Jewel’s A Reply to Harding’s Answer in... more The author of a Christian Letter cited a passage from John Jewel’s A Reply to Harding’s Answer in which the first major apologist of the Elizabethan Settlement spoke of the role of faith and the sacraments in union with Christ. Andrew Willet, the likely author of this work, quoted it against Richard Hooker in order to show how the latter contravened the sacramental theology of the national Church as interpreted by Jewel as one of the foremost expositors of its doctrine. Jewel, however, in his Reply to Harding’s Answer, enumerates four means of the Christian’s union with Christ: the Incarnation, faith, baptism, and the Eucharist-a fact overlooked in A Christian Letter by its author in his endeavor to impeach Hooker’s orthodoxy. Proceeding from the observation that both Jewel and Hooker believed that the locus of Christian salvation is union with Christ, this essay compares the two divines’ respective views of this union by examining the manner in which they understand the role of eac...
Tudor Books and Readers: Materiality and the Construction of Meaning. Edited by John N. King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. xviii + 270 pp. $95.00 cloth
In his Apology of the Church of England as well as many of his other works, John Jewel defended t... more In his Apology of the Church of England as well as many of his other works, John Jewel defended the orthodoxy of the Elizabethan Church on the basis of the following criteria: Scripture, the first four general councils, the writings of the Church Fathers, and the example of the primitive church.1 By emphasizing these authorities, the bishop of Salisbury also sought to impeach the Roman Church’s claim to orthodoxy by arguing that doctrines and practices which developed subsequently to the early church as defined by these criteria contradict them, thereby nullifying its charge of heresy against Protestants while simultaneously indicting the papacy itself as heretical. A question that emerges from studying Jewel’s prodigious polemical works concerns the source of this means of determining orthodoxy. Answering this question requires a close analysis of the apologist’s use of sources. This article will attempt to answer this question by arguing that this criteria for defining orthodoxy d...
This article will examine the role the first four ecumenical councils played in the controversial... more This article will examine the role the first four ecumenical councils played in the controversial enterprises of John Jewel (1522-71) as well as two later early modern English theologians, Richard Hooker (1553-1600) and George Carleton (1559-1628). In three different polemical contexts, each divine portrays the councils as representing definitive catholic consensus not only for doctrine, but also ecclesiastical order and governance. For all three of these theologians, the manner in which the first four ecumenical councils were summoned and conducted, as well as their enactments touching the Church’s life provided patristic norms for its rightful administration. Jewel, Hooker, and Carleton each argued that the English Protestant national Church as defined by the Elizabethan Settlement exemplified a faithful recovery of patristic conciliar ecclesiastical government as an essential component in England’s overall endeavor to return to the true Church Catholic. Jewel employed these counc...
John Jewel, regarded as the principal apologist and theologian for the Elizabethan Church, was al... more John Jewel, regarded as the principal apologist and theologian for the Elizabethan Church, was also esteemed as one of England’s most important (if not the most important) authority on the subject of usury, and therefore was cited frequently by opponents of usury towards the end of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth century. One of the most sustained interpretations of Jewel as a theologian on the subject of usury was by Christoph Jelinger, who observed that the late bishop of Sarum employed the same theological method in opposing usury as he did in defending the doctrines and practices of the Church of England against its Catholic opponents, that is, by appealing to the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, Church Councils, and the example of the primitive church. This article seeks to confirm the opinion of Jelinger, and in doing so show that Jewel’s opposition to usury stemmed primarily from the conviction that it was both a vice and heresy that eroded the unifying at...
‘By Force of Participation and Conjunction in Him’: John Jewel and Richard Hooker on Union with Christ
Perichoresis, 2014
The author of a Christian Letter cited a passage from John Jewel’s A Reply to Harding’s Answer in... more The author of a Christian Letter cited a passage from John Jewel’s A Reply to Harding’s Answer in which the first major apologist of the Elizabethan Settlement spoke of the role of faith and the sacraments in union with Christ. Andrew Willet, the likely author of this work, quoted it against Richard Hooker in order to show how the latter contravened the sacramental theology of the national Church as interpreted by Jewel as one of the foremost expositors of its doctrine. Jewel, however, in his Reply to Harding’s Answer, enumerates four means of the Christian’s union with Christ: the Incarnation, faith, baptism, and the Eucharist-a fact overlooked in A Christian Letter by its author in his endeavor to impeach Hooker’s orthodoxy. Proceeding from the observation that both Jewel and Hooker believed that the locus of Christian salvation is union with Christ, this essay compares the two divines’ respective views of this union by examining the manner in which they understand the role of eac...
Tudor Books and Readers: Materiality and the Construction of Meaning. Edited by John N. King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. xviii + 270 pp. $95.00 cloth
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