“whole in the whole, and whole in every part”.
In proposing to myself this twofold aim I introduce different controversialists one by one, each as a human character in his own right, without regard to contemporary or posthumous fame. In so doing, I present the main issues for which each one variously stood and with which he was personally associated. Finally, after having gone through them all, I turn to their great contemporary William Shakespeare, considering how far they and their writings were reflected in the course of his plays, in his characters and their often impassioned utterances. Yet it is also my intention not just to end with Shakespeare, but rather to look through his eyes to the present situation of England and to the wider world, and more profoundly to the heart of Man.
The Anglican Challenge
a) The Anglican Challenger, John Jewel (1522-71)
In his magisterial survey, English Literature in the Seventeenth Century excluding Drama (Oxford, 1954), C.S.Lewis commends John Jewel for his important Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, which was translated into English by Lady Anne Bacon, but not for his vernacular writings. Among the latter he even blames Jewel for the “jungle of controversies to which he rashly committed himself by his so-called Challenge Sermon in 1559”. On this point, however, different men may have different opinions. As for myself, I find the Sermon strangely moving in its eloquence and more even tempered than the Apologia, which descends to an unbecomingly low level of muck-raking and abuse in order to justify the Anglican position. In any case, the “two notable books” which their contemporary John Garbrand singled out for special praise in his 1583 edition of Jewel’s Sermons were neither the Sermon nor the Apology but the lengthy Reply to Harding’s Answer and the even lengthier Defence of the Apology. In Garbrand’s opinion, these were the “two double cannons prepared for the battery of error and superstition” and Jewel’s chief claim to the admiration and gratitude of posterity.
After the proceedings of Elizabeth’s first Parliament and the abortive conference held between the Catholics and the Protestants at Westminster, Jewel’s Sermon, which he first delivered at Paul’s Cross on November 26, 1559, while as yet bishop-elect of Salisbury, may be regarded as the first significant ecclesiastical event of the new reign. Taking as his text the words of St.Paul in I Corinthians xi, “Ego accepi a Domino”, he sharply criticizes the mediaeval Church “in this last age of the world” for its undue emphasis on the robes, ceremonies and sacrifices of Aaron, as opposed to “the institution and ordinance of Christ”. But now, he declares, “it hath pleased almighty God of his great mercy in these our days to remove away all such deformities, and to restore again the same holy mysteries to the first original”. Darkness had, in his opinion, descended upon the whole Church some six centuries after its foundation by Christ, but in these days, thanks to Martin Luther, “the glorious light of the Gospel of Christ is now mightily spread abroad”.
Such is the context in which he proceeds to make his famous challenge, in the form of a solemn promise that “if any learned man of all our adversaries, or if all the learned men that be alive, be able to bring any one sufficient sentence out of any old Catholic doctor, or out of any old General Council, or out of the holy Scriptures of God, and any one example of the primitive Church”, in support of any such point of doctrine or discipline as he goes on to enumerate, then he will “give over and subscribe unto him”. His enumeration includes such matters as the practice of private Mass, communion under one kind, the teaching of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the ceremony of elevating the host at Mass, the doctrine of transubstantiation, the worship of images, and the prohibition of laymen to read the Bible. All these things Jewel is sure, from his study of Church history and the Fathers under Peter Martyr at Oxford, were introduced for the first time in the mediaeval Church. Thus he isn’t merely criticizing that Church for abuses which might have crept in through human weakness and the lapse of time, in spite of official teaching. He is directing his criticism against the official teaching itself, for having allowed and even enforced these additions to the words of Christ for which (he claimed) the Catholics have “not one doctor, not one allowed example of the primitive Church to make for them”. In this criticism he is, moreover, taking his stand not only, like the majority of his fellow Protestants, on the plain words of the Gospel, but also on the writings of the Fathers and the practice of the Church in the first six centuries.
These challenging words of his were not allowed to remain unanswered for long, though the Catholics were labouring under certain practical difficulties in the way of response. Their bishops were all in prison, or at least under house arrest, and so, too, were many of their theologians who had remained in England, while others who had made their way to the Low Countries had no immediate means at their disposal to publish any answer. Nor for his part did Jewel himself give them any practical encouragement to take up his challenge. He was even accused by his former assistant, William Reynolds, of having had every corner of the realm searched for the Catholic books, of having had them publicly burnt at Paul’s Cross, of having procured a proclamation of the Queen against them, of having had old men and theologians imprisoned for possessing them. Still, it was one of those theologians who had remained behind, bound though he was “under recognizance” to refrain from theological disputation, who first ventured to respond to Jewel. This was Dr.Henry Cole, formerly Dean of St.Paul’s under Queen Mary, and one of the leaders of the Catholic party at the aborted conference held at Westminster.
Unable to state his case openly for fear of incurring the penalty of the law, Cole now presents his objections under the form of questions. “I come,” he pleads, “not to dispute but to learn.” What he particularly wishes to learn from Jewel is why the latter has offered disputation on these minor points rather than “in the chief matters that lie in question betwixt the Church of Rome and the Protestants”. In many such matters, he admits, “a General Council might take order that they should be practised as ye would have it”. He goes on to make a clear statement of his position as a Catholic in contrast to that of Jewel as a Protestant, “We continue in the faith we professed sith our baptism, ye pretend a change in the same. We have with us an apostolical Church, ye have none yet approved. We make no innovation… all new attempts are to be suspected. We are in possession, ye come to put us from it.”
In his replies to Cole’s private letters, which he published when the correspondence eventually petered out, Jewel rebuked his critic for having trespassed beyond his recognizance, but he still deigned to give him an answer. In the other’s letters he has, he declares, found “many words to little purpose”. In particular, he rejects Cole’s claim of Catholic antiquity and criticism of Protestant innovation, according to the main line of his Challenge Sermon. “He that will make any innovation, say you, must give a reason of his doings?” he questions. Then, turning to the attack, he notes with sarcasm, “O master doctor, this reason fighteth most against yourself, for you have misliked and put away the most part of the order of the primitive Church, and yet never gave any good reason of your doings.” As for Cole’s petition that the two parties might henceforth leave each other in peace, Jewel refuses to allow even this, retorting with heavy irony, in an argumentum ad hominem to be found recurring in the mouths of many Protestant apologists in the new reign, “If you of your part would have done so when time was, many a godly man had now been alive”. And so many a godly Catholic was sent to Tyburn under Queen Elizabeth, to make due atonement for many a godly Protestant who had been sent to Smithfield under Queen Mary.
From this little controversy between Cole and Jewel, as from the head waters of a great river, Jewel went on to compose his important work in justification of the newly established Anglican Church, first in the Latin of his Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, as it was primarily meant to be read by men of learning across the sea, and then translated (twice) into English. Here he was not so much attacking the already defeated Catholic party in England as defending the Anglican cause before a wider, European audience. In particular, he recognized the need of justifying his party against
