Much is made in our current Anglican discussions about what it means to be both “Reformed” and “Catholic”. Some would suggest that it means a compromise between Roman Catholic theology and some type of “Reform”. For others it is simply a description of the middle ground that Elizabeth attempted to steer after the excesses of her sister Mary’s reign.

But how did the original 16^th Reformers view this matter? What defence of their position did they provide?

Perhaps one of the most famous such defenses is Bishop John Jewel‘s Apology of the Church of England, first published in 1562 in Latin. It provided a defense of the actions of the Anglican Reformers against their Roman accusors. In particular, Jewel sought to demonstrate that the English Reformation was a movement of the church in England to it’s original Catholic roots. What he meant be “Catholic” we will see.

[Our opponents] cry out upon us at this present everywhere, that we are all heretics, and have forsaken the faith, and have with new persuasions and wicked learning utterly dissolved the concord of the Church; ... that we have seditiously fallen from the Catholic Church, and by a wicked schism and division have shaken the whole world, and troubled the common peace and universal quiet of the Church;

By “Catholic” Jewel means the “universal” church. That is, he uses the classical sense of the word which derives from the Greek κατα and oλος meaning “according to” and “whole”. The claim of Rome, of course, was (and still is) that it was the true Church, the Catholic Church and that the Reformers had broken catholicity.
Jewel, by contrast, sought to argue that it was the Reformers who were “Catholic”.

Further, if we do show it plainly that God’s holy Gospel, the ancient bishops, and the primitive Church do make on our side, and that we have not without just cause left these men, and rather have returned to the Apostles and old Catholic fathers; and if we shall be found to do the same not colourably or craftily, but in good faith before God, truly, honestly, clearly, and plainly; and if they themselves which fly our doctrine, and would be called Catholics, shall manifestly see how all these titles of antiquity, whereof they boast so much, are quite shaken out of their hands; and that there is more pith in this our cause than they thought for; we then hope and trust that none of them will be so negligent and careless of his own salvation, but he will at length study and bethink himself to whether part he were best to join him. Undoubtedly, except one will altogether harden his heart and refuse to hear, he shall not repent him to give good heed to this our Defence, and to mark well what we say, and how truly and justly it agreeth with Christian religion.

The point is clear. Jewel sees the Protestant Reformation as a return to Catholic doctrine and, as such, as being consistent with the faith of the Apostles and Church Fathers. Rome, Jewel declared, had reverted from this true catholicity:

For the people of God are otherwise instructed now than they were in times past, when all the bishops of Rome’s sayings were allowed for Gospel, and when all religion did depend only upon their authority.  Nowadays the Holy Scripture is abroad, the writings of the Apostles and Prophets are in print, whereby all truth and Catholic doctrine may be proved, and all heresy may be disproved and confuted.

For Jewel the ultimate authority of Scripture was the test of true Catholicity…

Wherefore, if we be heretics, and they (as they would fain be called) be Catholics, why do they not, as they see the fathers, which were Catholic men, have always done?  Why do they not convince and master us by the Divine Scriptures?  Why do they not call us again to be tried by them? Why do they not lay before us how we have gone away from Christ, from the Prophets, from the Apostles, and from the holy fathers?  Why stick they to do it?  Why are they afraid of it?  It is God’s cause.  Why are they doubtful to commit it to the trial of God’s word?  If we be heretics, which refer all our controversies unto the Holy Scriptures, and report us to the self-same words which we know were sealed by God Himself, and in comparison of them set little by all other things, whatsoever may be devised by men, how shall we say to these folk, I pray you what manner of men be they, and how is it meet to call them, which fear the judgment of the Holy Scriptures—that is to say, the judgment of God Himself—and do prefer before them their own dreams and full cold inventions; and, to maintain their own traditions, have defaced and corrupted, now these many hundred years, the ordinances of Christ and of the Apostles?

This same Catholic faith was, Jewel claims, what the Fathers believed:

...all men may see what is our judgment of every part of Christian religion, and may resolve with themselves, whether the faith which they shall see confirmed by the words of Christ, by the writings of the Apostles, by the testimonies of the Catholic fathers, and by the examples of many ages, be but a certain rage of furious and mad men, and a conspiracy of heretics.  This therefore is our belief.

In Part II of his Apology Jewel then sets out what he believes this Catholic faith,which the Scriptures testify to and the Fathers affirm, to be. It is a decidedly Protestant faith.

...there neither is, nor can be any one man, which may have the whole superiority in this universal state: for that Christ is ever present to assist His Church, and needeth not any man to supply His room,  as His only heir to all His substance: and that there can be no one mortal creature, which is able to comprehend or conceive in his mind the universal Church, that is to wit, all the parts of the world, much less able rightly and duly to put them in order, and to govern them rightly and duly.
...
neither the Pope, nor any other worldly creature can no more be head of the whole Church, or a bishop over all, than he can be the bridegroom, the light, the salvation, and life of the Church.  For the privileges and names belong only to Christ, and be properly and only fit for him alone.
...
Moreover, we say that Christ hath given to His ministers power to bind, to loose, to open, to shut.  And that the office of loosing consisteth in this point: that the minister should either offer by the preaching of the Gospel the merits of Christ and full pardon, to such as have lowly and contrite hearts, and do unfeignedly repent themselves, pronouncing unto the same a sure and undoubted forgiveness of their sins, and hope of everlasting salvation: or else that the same minister, when any have offended their brothers’ minds with a great offence, with a notable and open fault, whereby they have, as it were, banished and made themselves strangers from the common fellowship, and from the body of Christ; then after perfect amendment of such persons, doth reconcile them, and bring them home again, and restore them to the company and unity of the faithful.  We say also, that the minister doth execute the authority of binding and shutting, as often as he shutteth up the gate of the kingdom of heaven against the unbelieving and stubborn persons, denouncing unto them God’s vengeance, and everlasting punishment: or else, when he doth quite shut them out from the bosom of the Church by open excommunication.
...
Moreover, we allow the Sacraments of the Church, that is to say, certain holy signs and ceremonies, which Christ would we should use, that by them He might set before our eyes the mysteries of our salvation, and might more strongly confirm our faith which we have in His blood, and might seal His grace in our hearts.  And these Sacraments, together with Tertullian, Origen, Ambrose, Hierom,  Chrysostom, Basil, Dionysius, and other Catholic fathers, do we call figures, signs, marks or badges, prints, copies, forms, seals, signets, similitudes, patterns, representations, remembrances and memories.  And we make no doubt, together with the same doctors, to say, that these be certain visible words, seals of righteousness, tokens of grace: and do expressly pronounce, that in the Lord’s Supper there is truly given unto the believing the body and blood of the Lord, the flesh of the Son of God, which quickeneth our souls, the meat that cometh from above, the food of immortality, grace, truth, and life, and the Supper to be the communion of the body and blood of Christ; by the partaking whereof we be revived, we be strengthened, and be fed unto immortality; and whereby we are joined, united, and incorporate unto Christ, that we may abide in Him, and He in us.

Besides, we acknowledge there be two Sacraments, which, we judge, properly ought to be called by this name; that is to say, Baptism and the Sacrament of thanksgiving.  For thus many we say were delivered and sanctified by Christ, and well allowed of the old fathers, Ambrose and Augustine.
...
We say also, that every person is born in sin, and leadeth his life in sin: that nobody is able truly to say his heart is clean: that the most righteous person is but an unprofitable servant: that the law of God is perfect, and requireth of us perfect and full obedience: that we are able by no means to fulfil that law in this worldly life: that there is no one mortal creature which can be justified by his own deserts in God’s sight: and therefore that our only succour and refuge is to fly to the mercy of our Father by Jesu Christ, and assuredly to persuade our minds that He is the obtainer of forgiveness for our sins; and that by His blood all our spots of sin be washed clean: that He hath pacified and set at one, all things by the blood of His Cross: that He by the same one only Sacrifice, which He once offered upon the Cross, hath brought to effect and fulfilled all things, and that for that cause He said, when He gave up the ghost, “It is finished,” as though He would signify, that the price and ransom was now full paid for the sin of all mankind.

It’s powerful stuff.

But what will Rome say to all of this? Surely all these “Protestant” disagree amongst themselves? How is that Catholicity?

Well, Jewel has an answer for that…

when, as Constantine the emperor affirmeth, there were such a number of variances and brawlings in the Church, that it might justly seem a misery far passing all the former miseries; when also Theophilus, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Augustine, Ruffine, Hierom, being all Christians, being all fathers, being all Catholics, did strive one against another with most bitter and remediless contentions without end; when, as saith Nazianzen, the parts of one body were consumed and wasted one of another; when the east part was divided from the west, only for leavened bread and only for keeping of Easter Day; which were indeed no great matters to be strived for; and when in all councils new creeds and new decrees continually were devised.  What would these men (trow ye) have said in those days? which side would they specially then have taken? and which would they then have forsaken? which Gospel would they have believed? whom would they have accounted for heretics, and whom for Catholics?  And yet what a stir and revel keep they at this time upon two poor names only of Luther and Zuinglius?  Because these two men do not yet fully agree upon some one point, therefore would they needs have us think that both of them were deceived; that neither of them had the Gospel; and that neither of them taught the truth aright.

Simply put, those that the Roman church taught were also agreed, were no such thing - not that that itself was reason for comdemnation, that was just the way it was. And Rome itself was a bit of a mess too so people in glass houses…

But, good God, what manner of fellows be these which blame us for disagreeing?  And do all they themselves, ween you, agree well together? Is every one of them fully resolved what to follow?  Hath there been no strifes, no debates, no quarrels among them at no time?  Why then do the Scotists and the Thomists, about that they call _meritum congrui_ and _meritum condigni_, no better agree together?  Why agree they no better among themselves concerning original sin in the Blessed Virgin? concerning a solemn vow and a single vow?  Why say the canonists, that auricular confession is appointed by the positive law of man: and the schoolmen contrariwise, that it is appointed by the law of God?  Why doth Albertus Pighius dissent from Cajetanus?  Why doth Thomas dissent from Lombardus, Scotus from Thomas, Occamus from Scotus, Alliacensis [ed. 1564 Alliensis] from Occamus?  And why do the Nominals disagree from the Reals?  And yet say I nothing of so many diversities of friars and monks; how some of them put a great holiness in eating of fish, and some in eating of herbs; some in wearing of shoes, and some in wearing of sandals; some in going in a linen garment, and some in a woollen; some of them called white, some black; some being shaven broad, and some narrow: some stalking abroad upon pattens, some barefooted;... [and it goes on. and on. and on].

Jewel’s point in all this clear. The Reformation in England was no novelty. On the contrary…

As for our doctrine which we may rightly call Christ’s catholic doctrine, it is so far off from new that God, who is above all most ancient, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, hath left the same unto us in the Gospel, in the Prophets’ and Apostles’ works, being monuments of greatest age.  So that no man can now think our doctrine to be new, unless the same think either the Prophets’ faith, or the Gospel, or else Christ Himself to be new.
...
We truly for our parts, as we have said, have done nothing in altering religion either upon rashness or arrogancy; nor nothing but with good leisure and great consideration.  Neither had we ever intended to do it, except both the manifest and most assured will of God, opened to us in His Holy Scriptures, and the regard of our own salvation, had even constrained us thereunto.  For though we have departed from that Church which these men call Catholic, and by that means get us envy amongst them that want skill to judge, yet is this enough for us, and ought to be enough for every wise and good man, and one that maketh account of everlasting life, that we have gone from that Church which had power to err: which Christ, who cannot err, told so long before it should err; and which we ourselves did evidently see with our eyes to have gone both from the holy fathers, and from the Apostles, and from Christ His own self, and from the primitive and Catholic Church; and we are come as near as we possibly could to the Church of the Apostles and of the old Catholic bishops and fathers; which Church we know hath hereunto been sound and perfect, and, as Tertullian termeth it, a pure virgin, spotted as yet with no idolatry, nor with any foul or shameful fault: and have directed, according to their customs and ordinances, not only our doctrine, but also the Sacraments and the form of common prayer.

So what does it mean to be “Reformed Catholic”? For Jewel the phrase would have not spoken of compromise. On the contrary. To be Catholic was, as he understood it, to be Reformed:

And, as we know both Christ Himself and all good men heretofore have done, we have called home again to the original and first foundation that religion which hath been foully foreslowed, and utterly corrupted by these men.

The words “Reformed” and “Catholic” would have been, for Jewel, synonymous. There was no compromise. Only a strict adherence to the original Catholic doctrine of Jesus Christ and His apostles and a rejection, therefore, of Rome. Jewel would not have countenanced the use of the word “Catholic” to accurately describe the church based in Rome. Things may have changed these days, but for the 16^th Century Anglican Reformers there was no compromise with what they saw as the Scriptural gospel and therefore no compromise at all with Rome.

Fantastic—thank you for sharing.  Jewell’s Apology is long and I’ve never gotten all the way through it; you have gleaned out the choicest grain for us to inspect.  It reaffirms my faith.

You’re right, it’s a long haul! I’m not sure if they’re the very choicest grains, but I hope they’re the right ones to deal with the question at hand.

I also highly recommend Jewel’s Apology of the Church of England, which I am once more preparing to have my students read in my Anglican Way of Theology course.

I would disagree with David’s statement: “The words “Reformed” and “Catholic” would have been, for Jewel, synonymous.”  If by “Reformed,” we mean Genevan Calvinism, this is not what Jewel means by “Reformed Catholic.”

While there is a great deal of sympathy for the continental Reformers in Jewel’s writings (as there is in Cranmer and Hooker as well), by Reformed Catholic, Jewel means Reformed Catholic, not Reformed Catholic.

Jewel agrees with the Continental Reformers in appealing to the primacy, clarity, and sufficiency of Scripture.  However, his approach is distinct in that this means the primacy, clarity, and sufficiency of Scripture as consistent with and in historic continuity with the interpretation of Scripture in the patristic Church.  He never contrasts Scripture and tradition, but rather argues that Rome has departed from the Catholic tradition of the first few centuries by adding doctrines and practices found neither in Scripture, nor in the patristic church.

As do Fathers like Ireneaus, Jewel interprets Scripture through the lens of the Rule of Faith, and his Apology in simply an exposition of the Rule of Faith, with the affirmation that this is the Catholic faith of the Church of England.

Jewel affirms doctrines like that of the Keys (the church’s ministers have the right to declare the forgiveness of sins), which are closer to Catholic than Protestant understandings of the sacramental mediation of grace, and repudiates Zwinglian symbolic interpretation of the sacraments, which he insists are effective instruments of grace—although he also repudiates transubstantiation.  Against both transubstantiation and Zwinglianism, Jewel argues (as do Cranmer and Hooker) for a “spiritual” understanding of presence, which he believes is the same doctrine as that found in the Fathers.  (What the Anglican Reformers meant by “spiritual” presence is, of course, a matter of discussion.)

Central distinctives of Reformed Protestantism are simply lacking in Jewel’s exposition—there is no discussion of an all-determining providence; predestination is not a central theme.  (Is it even mentioned in the Apology?)

So, yes. Jewel is Reformed Catholicism, but as interpreted in a distinctly Anglican sense.

William Witt makes an important point. The English Reformation had nuances and historical continuity that were not found in the Continental Reformation. Jewel’s reference to maintaining an ancient “form of common prayer”  is one example of a liturgical emphasis that would have been dismissed in Calvin’s Geneva.

Did Jewel have a theory of the development of doctrine which allowed him to rely upon the authority of the Patristic church?

I’m curious at to why it was written in Latin and the the only ‘translation’ is contemoraneous with Jewel’s lifetime? Are there no translations of this work into Modern English? Or any other modern language?

Oh, I thought this thread was about the *singer* Jewel… never mind.

Jewell’s Apology is long and I’ve never gotten all the way through it

Actually the Apology is rather short, in the Folger Library edition (which I recommend because of Booty’s superb introduction) it is less than 150 pages.  Now, the Defense of the Apology written in response in Harding’s attacks is indeed quite lengthy and probably what you are thinking of.

There is no modern language edition available.  But I find Jewel’s Elizabethan english to be a reasonably easy read, at least when compared to Hooker…

Right there with you, Jason #7. Maybe this guy’s the one they meant to get on “Dancing With The Stars”...

Why would it need to be translated into modern English?  It IS in modern English, that is, not in Old or Middle English.  It is perfectly understandable to any educated person and just has an archaic flavor to it which is most enjoyable. 

Of course,  the opponents he cites pretty much express my point of view.

Susan Peterson

Newman:
“What was the use of continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if, after all, I was forging arguments for Arius or Eutyches, and turning devil’s advocate against the much-enduring Athanasius and the majestic Leo? Be my soul with the Saints! and shall I lift up my hand against them? Sooner may my right hand forget her cunning, and wither outright, as his who once stretched it out against a prophet of God! anathema to a whole tribe of Cranmers, Ridleys, Latimers, and Jewels I perish the names of Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Stillingfleet, and Barrow from the face of the earth, ere I should do aught but fall at their
feet in love and in worship, whose image was continually before my eyes, and whose musical words wore ever in my ears and on my tongue!”
Susan Peterson

I think there should have been a semicolon or a dash, or a comma, in that citation, after
“Jewels” and before “perish.”  I copy pasted a typo, sorry. 

I might point out that the *actions* of the English Reformation, breaking stained glass,  destroying rood screens and crucifixes, paintings and statues,  was plain iconoclasm clearly rejected by the Fathers. 

Nor is the main doctrine of the Reformation to be found in the Fathers, the idea of imputed righteousness as the only cause of justification, nor the sharp separation between justification and sanctification.  Some citations referring to ‘faith alone’ can be found, but they do not mean in their proper context what the phrase means for Protestants. 

There are prayers for the dead on the walls of the catacombs.  The bones of the martyrs were collected and honored.  Not 39 article stuff.

I fail to see the point of his saying that there were disputes in the ancient church and continued to be disputes during his time.  Surely there has been no claim that there would never be any disagreement on any matter in the church.  I just don’t see a cogent point in those paragraphs. 

Beautifully expressed, though.
Even if by a translator from Latin.  Someone asked why Latin?  That was the language of intellectual discussion and debate at that time. 
Susan Peterson

#12

This is just off the cuff, however I think you are confusing the English Reformation with the aftermath of the English Revolution of the 17th century when Cromwell’s followers did great destruction to the churches in England.  One that I know of is St. Mary’s, Mildenhall, Suffolk.  The wooden angels that are above the nave were disfigured by Puritans.

I would disagree with David’s statement: “The words “Reformed” and “Catholic” would have been, for Jewel, synonymous.”  If by “Reformed,” we mean Genevan Calvinism, this is not what Jewel means by “Reformed Catholic.”

Of course, you’re right. Aside from the fact that Jewel, to my knowledge, never used the exact phrase, there were a variety of flavours of Reformation in Europe. But that Jewel was firmly in the Protestant camp, there can be no doubt.

Jewel agrees with the Continental Reformers in appealing to the primacy, clarity, and sufficiency of Scripture.  However, his approach is distinct in that this means the primacy, clarity, and sufficiency of Scripture as consistent with and in historic continuity with the interpretation of Scripture in the patristic Church.  He never contrasts Scripture and tradition, but rather argues that Rome has departed from the Catholic tradition of the first few centuries by adding doctrines and practices found neither in Scripture, nor in the patristic church.

Right, and surely his point is that the patristic church, when it was being Catholic, never strayed from the Scriptures either? That was the mark of their catholicism too.

Central distinctives of Reformed Protestantism are simply lacking in Jewel’s exposition—there is no discussion of an all-determining providence; predestination is not a central theme.  (Is it even mentioned in the Apology?)

No, it’s not. But, curiously, I don’t think this was a massive emphasis of the original Reformers either. True, Zwingli devotes a whole book to it, but they were far more concerned with arguing for a distinctive soteriology. Distinct from Rome, that is. So while I note that Jewel did not address this issue I don’t think the times demanded that he did.

In spite of the definite article, references to “the patristic church” are often disturbingly fuzzy, not to say mythic. In the context of this thread’s discussion, to what does it refer?

#13, Cromwell merely continued a trend that Henry VIII began.  For a superb treatment of the matter, read Eamon Duffy’s “The Stripping of the Altars”.

Here are a few facts gleaned about Bishop John Jewell from W. M. Southgate’s John Jewel and the Problem of Doctrinal Authority and other sources.

In his citation of Patristic writers Jewell would not quote the isolated opinion of one writer or a later writer’s quotation of an earlier writer’s opinion. He would only quote the opinion of Patristic writers where a number of these writers agreed and then only when he himself believed that the opinion they shared was Scriptural. He did not assume that th opinions of the Patristic writers were Scriptural because they wrote in the Patristic period. He prefered to cite the earliest of the Patristic writers, those who wrote during the period closest to apostolic times.

During the Marian persecution Jewell fled England to Frankfurt and then Strassburg and took refuge with Peter Vermigli who became his mentor. After he returned to England, Jewel maintained correspondence with Henreich Bullinger with whom he had formed a relationship while in exile. A lot can be gleaned about what Jewell thought from his correspondence with Bullinger. For example, he was opposed to the wearing of the surplice and to the hanging of crucifixes on the walls of churches and chapels, including the royal chapel. 

In addition to writing Apologia ecclesiae Anglicanae and Defence of the Apology, Jewell is also believed to be the author of many of the Elizabethan homilies. The later on the Internet at: http://www.churchsociety.org/issues_new/doctrine/homilies/iss_doctrine_homilies_intro.asp

John Jewell by G. W. Bromiley, published by Church Book Room Press, is on the Internet in four parts.
Introduction http://www.churchsociety.org/issues_new/history/jewell/iss_history_jewell_bromiley-introduction.asp
The Life of Jewell
http://www.churchsociety.org/issues_new/history/jewell/iss_history_jewell_bromiley-life.asp
Jewell’s Works http://www.churchsociety.org/issues_new/history/jewell/iss_history_jewell_bromiley-works.asp
The Importance of Jewell
http://www.churchsociety.org/issues_new/history/jewell/iss_history_jewell_bromiley-importance.asp

Dr. Witt (#3),

As always, I welcome your contribution to this thread, and most especially as I know this is your area of expertise.  Alas, I don’t think there was as much continuity between the Fathers and the English Reformers as they claimed, and that you seem to think existed.

But let me call attention to an obscure but fascinating canon passed by Convocation in 1571, when the 39 Articles received their final, enduring form.  I don’t have the exact quote memorized, but the gist of it is truly remarkable.  In the sense of virtually incredible, i.e., not credible.

That is, while setting forth the 39 Articles, slightly expanded from the original 1563 version, Convocation made the truly startling (and to my mind unbelievable) claim that the Articles were in fundamental accord with the teaching of the Fathers, AND WERE TO BE INTERPRETED ACCORDINGLY!  And that’s the killer, the stunning last part.

Now I’m sure David Ould is likely to go into apoplexy and have the typical Sudney reaction here, namely a Puritan like desire to close the loophole I think this leaves for Anglo-Catholic views (like mine) within Anglicanism.  For clearly, this peculiar statement included in the 1571 canon authorizing the 39 Articles as the doctrinal standard for the CoE is at least capable of being interpreted in a Catholic sense that was probably never intended by the reform-minded leaders of the CoE back then.  For IF, and it’s a very big if indeed, the 39 Articles are to be interpreted IN ACCORD WITH THE TEACHING OF THE FATHERS, that sure seems to leave a theological loophole that’s big enough to drive a truck through in terms of legitimizing a very Catholic interpretation of the Articles.

Now I’ve never been happy with my hero John Henry Newman’s ludicrous and desperate attempt to reconcile the 39 Articles with the teaching of Trent in his infamous Tract 90.  But lo and behold, if we pay attention to that long-neglected and forgotten, obscure canon in 1571, then it seems to give me full freedom to interpret the 39 Articles in a Catholic sense that John Jewel would have scorned, and stoutly and vehemently rejected.  Not to mention Latimer and Ridley and their hardcore Protestant ilk.

I’m being provocative, I know (as is my wont here at SF).  I’m well aware that I’m waving an Anglo-Catholic red flag in front of all the proudly Protestant bulls at SF (including Matt and carl).  And just so we’re all clear on it, the one I’m deliberately provoking here really isn’t Dr. Witt (for whom I have the greatest respect), but David Ould, who started this thread. 

I freely admit that I’m no friend of Sydney style Anglicanism.  I didn’t leave my Presbyterian roots behind in order to merely become a Calvinist in a chasule (or cassock and surplice either).  What would be the point in that?

But perhaps we can all agree that the real issue here is what constitutes the proper standard for what Anglicanism stands for doctrinally?  Is the the Reformed consensus from the early period (say the Elizabethan/Stuart era, roughly 1558-1620)?  Or is it on the contrary the later,  truly “Catholic and Reformed” Anglicanism of the Caroline period (i.e., Charles I and II)?

Obviously, I contend that it’s the latter, and espeically the all-important era from 1625-1640, when what I regard as Classical (i.e., normative) Anglicanism really came to the fore under Archbishop Laud and the illustrious Caroline Divines (Lancelot Andrewes, Bramhall, Hammond, Pearson, Taylor, and the rest of those glorious guys).

For after all, if that obscure, potentially ambiguous 1571 canon is taken seriously, the Caroline Divines were fully justified in interpreting the 39 Articles in a way far more compatible with the Fathers than Jewel would’ve approved.

David Handy+

David Handy+

Oops, sorry for the double signature at the end.  And also for leaving out a key word in the thrid paragraph from the end.  What I meant was this.  Is the normative doctrinal standard in Anglicanism to be the understanding of the Articles that was prevalent during the Reformed Consensus (up to 1590 or even 1620), or is it the far more patristic and catholic understanding championed by the Caroline Divines??

And my point is that the more catholic viewpoint of the latter period is ironically justified on one reading of a canon passed along with the final form of the 39 Articles during the heyday of that Reformed Consensus.  But hey, stranger things have happened in church history.  And I think Dr. Witt will at least agree with that last point.

David Handy+

David,

To your question, I would ask, “Which Caroline Divines?”

I have no problem in seeing Jewel in continuity with the Carolines.  After all, he was Hooker’s protege.  John Donne, George Herbert, Lancelot Andrewes, and Thomas Traherne are among some of my heroes.

Jeremy Taylor . . . not so much.

Whoops.  Or, rather Hooker was Jewel’s protege.

And, I’d also add just below Jeremy Taylor . . .
Newman . . . Not so much.

Did Jewel have a theory of the development of doctrine which allowed him to rely upon the authority of the Patristic church?

No. No one had a theory of development of doctrine until Newman.  Owen Chadwick’s From Bossuet to Newman provides a good account here.  Both Protestants and Roman Catholics believed at the time that a mark of fidelity to the gospel was that things did not change.  Roman Catholics insisted that the full panoply of Roman Catholic doctrine—including papal primacy, transubstantiation, purgatory, the Marian dogmas, had all been believed by the Church since the time of the apostles.  The Reformers disputed this.

Jewel did not need a theory of doctrinal development to explain his dependence on the patristic church.  His argument was that the Church of England was in continuity with the Catholic Church of the first five centuries and Rome was not. Jewel was one of the early investigators of the historical record.  It was a fairly easy thing to show that transubstantiation, for instance, was not a Patristic doctrine.

Development of doctrine was Newman’s apologetic device to get around historical realities that could no longer be denied.  That is, Newman actually agreed with Jewel about the facts.  He came up with a theory to explain why they did not matter.

This looks like it might get fun.  I guess I should get the popcorn.

The real question, actually, is not who is the “Genuine Anglican” but whether “Orthodox Anglicanism” is big enough to accomandate the lace-wearing Eucharist adoring smells and bells type and their Calvanist counterparts.  If not, it is doomed to yet another round or three of fraction and division.

Didn’t the Caroline divines include Archbishop of Armagh James Ussher?

The real question, actually, is not who is the “Genuine Anglican” but whether “Orthodox Anglicanism” is big enough to accomandate the lace-wearing Eucharist adoring smells and bells type and their Calvanist counterparts.

It seems to me that neither one of these is an option.  Both approaches presume that “Genuine Anglicanism” is a return to some particular cultural interpretation of some particular Anglicans at some point in the past.

If Anglicanism is going to have a future, it will not be because we slavishly imitate some imaginary Golden Age (which never existed).  Rather, we should do in the twenty-first century what Jewel or the Caroline Divines or people like Michael Ramsey did in their own times.

The way forward is not imitation of the past—especially not the past of the sixteenth or nineteenth century, but Ressourcement, a humble learning from and reappropriation of the canonical, patristic, and Medieval heritage in a twenty-first century setting. (Nor is the way forward a simplistic embracing of the marketing methods of popular Evangelicalism—praise bands, seeker services, abandoning of liturgical worship and hymnody, etc.)

I think that was what people like Cranmer, Jewel, and Hooker were trying to do in their own time.  The key patristic insights one finds in Cranmer, Jewel, Hooker, Andrewes, Herbert, and Donne are the primacy of (and immersion in) Scripture interpreted through the Rule of Faith, combined with the catholic practices of lectio divina, liturgical worship, daily office, etc., along with a genuine dialogue with and learning from figures like Athanasius, Augustine, and Aquinas.

Certainly they were wrong about some things, for example, their iconoclasm.  Their Eucharistic theology is unclear, and probably inadequate.  But their theological prescription is right on target.

This quiet reappropriation of the catholic heritage of the church is one of the often unheralded signs of renewal in the church today—especially among Evangelicals, whether Anglican or otherwise.  It is, perhaps, the foundation for the emergence of a new orthodox ecumenism.  When Baptists at Baylor University start talking about the Daily Office, and professors at Liberty University write books about Augustine’s catechetical method, and Pentecostals in Singapore write books about liturgy, you know something strange is going on.

Well, I hate to disappoint AndrewA (#23), who may have popped some popcorn prematurely, hoping to watch an intense theological brawl, but let me gratefully respond to Dr. Witt’s latest comment by heartily agreeing with his irenic #25.

I fully agree with him that there is no “Golden Age” of Anglicanism to which we should return today, whether that be the heroic era of the English Reformers or the later, more balanced time of the Caroline Divines.  Or for that matter, the even later period of the Tractarians, or the great Evangelical missionary heyday in the Victorian era.  There is no Utopia, no Eden to go back to.

So I heartily agree with the illustrious TSM prof that the way forward and out of our current Anglican quagmire is not by going back to some putative ideal era when Anglicanism was supposedly at its best.  I agree that we shouldn’t imaginine we can somehow recreate that idyllic earlier age.  No, the only way forward is truly by going forward, as courageously and faithfully as our forebears did, but doing so via a CRITICAL (not slavish) reappropriation of the best in our past, i.e., the kind of “ressourcement” Dr. Witt mentioned above.

And lest I be misunderstood, let me add and clarify that this call to a genuinely critical return to the sources (“ad fontes”), to the fountainhead of the stream, necessitates a discerning, not simplistic, reappropriation of the Fathers as well, and even the inspired biblical writings too.  None of them are exempt from careful analysis to separate the wheat from the chaff, the meat from the bones, since they were all (even the biblical writers) limited in their understanding of divinely revealed truth.

Lest this comment get too long, let me stop here, and merely note one further point of agreement with Dr. Witt.  Like everyone else, I suppose, I have my favorites among the Reformers and among the Caroline Divines, but also those that I personally like “not so much.”  And yes, among the Carolines, that latter category would include some of Jeremy Taylor’s speculative and rather idiosyncratic notions.

I’m not a big fan of Richard Hooker myself, who had more broad church sympathies than I like, but there is one astute comment he made somewhere that I’m fond of recalling.  He once lamented something like this: 

There are two great evils that bedevil these times.  The first, the belief that the Pope hath not erred.  The other that Geneva will not.

Amicably,
David Handy+

Having waved a provocative red flag in front of Protestant bulls above, let me seek to make amends by suggesting a (hopefully) more irenic way of looking at the tensions and conflicts between the Reformed and Catholic sides of our Anglican heritage.  And regular SF readers will quickly recognize what I’m about to say as one of my characteristic themes that I tend to harp on frequently here, perhaps ad nauseam.  So please bear with me, as I try again.

I’m referring to my passionate, persistent advocacy of what I like to call “3-D Christianity,” i.e., evangelical, catholic, and charismatic.  Now in the AMiA wing of the ACNA, they like to use the more common language of “three streams,” but I much prefer to speak of three DIMENSIONS.

And one of the main reasons for that preference for 3-D language is that by invoking the analogy to geometry, I’m implying that the evnagelical, catholic, and charismatic dimensions of Christianity operate on different planes and thus don’t come into direct conflict with each other nearly as much as people usually suppose.  Certainly the evangelical and catholic dimenions, for example, do intersect and are oriented in different directions and thus can clash at times, but fundamentally they need not be seen as being irreconciably opposed to each other.

However, they remain irreducibly different.  Contrary to John Jewel, the Reformed/Protestant dimension can’t be simply equated with the true Catholic dimension, as represented by the early Fathers of the Church.  That amounts to collapsing the Catholic dimension into the Reformed outlook, and diminishing its otherness and challenge to the whole Protesant approach to the Christian faith and life.  Which leaves us with merely a one-dimensional kind of Christianity in the end, albeit with Anglicanism having perhaps a slightly more patristic/catholic flavor than on the Continent.

Another reason why I keep championing this whole 3-D approach is because it stands in sharp contrast to the usual “via media” approach we’re so familiar with in Anglicanism.  Because the whole idea of striking some moderate middle way between two extremes, whether they be thought of as Rome and Geneva (as the Carolines did), or as between Wittenberg and Geneva (as the earlier English Reformers did), inevitably leads to a sense of compromise.  And that tends to foster a Loadicean sort of lukewarmness, with Anglicans running neither hot nor cold, neither fully Protestant nor fully Catholic, but a kind of half/half mix of the two.

And like the author of Revelation, I don’t like lukewarm water.  I want to vomit it out.

Part of the beauty of the 3-D model is that it allows the evangelical/Protestant and the catholic dimensions to be retained IN FULL VIGOR, and UNCOMPROMISED.  There is no need to “reconcile” them, since they operate on different planes, and thus don’t collide head on like trains running on the same track.

And part of the winsome attractiveness of the Fathers to me is precisely the fact that they managed to combine the essential evangelical and catholic dimensions (along with the often neglected third, charismatic dimesion as well) to a degree that the Church has never succeeded in doing so well since that happier springtime.

For example, today (August 28th) is the feast day of St. Augustine of Hippo, the greatest of the Latin Fathers.  And so it seems appropriate to recall that there was BOTH a strong anti-Pelagian side to Augustine (that is especially dear to the Protestants among us) and an equally strong anti-Donatist side to him (that’s especially dear to the Anglo-Catholics among us).  Someone how, the great Doctor of the Church held both aspects together, although it may be doubted if even he fully integrated them.  Alas, at the time of the (first) Protestant Reformation, the anti-Pelagian side of Augustine was pitted against his anti-Donatist side, with the Protestants championing the former and the Roman Catholics the latter).

Somehow, we have to be able to surmount that unfortunate bifurcation of Augustine’s amazingly complex, rich, and comprehensive theology and reclaim our full patrimony.  And I think we Anglicans have a special vocation to do just that, to rejoin what God has joined together, but man has put asunder.

And to me, that’s the kind of reverent but critical reappropriation of our past that’s called for today, the Ressourcement Dr. Witt spoke of so aptly.

David Handy+

Another reason why I keep championing this whole 3-D approach is because it stands in sharp contrast to the usual “via media” approach we’re so familiar with in Anglicanism.  Because the whole idea of striking some moderate middle way between two extremes, whether they be thought of as Rome and Geneva (as the Carolines did), or as between Wittenberg and Geneva (as the earlier English Reformers did), inevitably leads to a sense of compromise.

I’m out of my depth here, but that never stopped me before.

My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that the earliest use of the “Via Media” term was to mean not so much compromise for the sake of compromise, but the notion that Anglicanism rejected the errors of both Rome and Geneva, and that Anglicanism was the one that got things right.

<Jewell did not need a theory of doctrinal development to explain his dependence on the patristic church.>

I am assuming that means that, apart from any anachronism,  Jewell would not deny that there was doctrinal development from the apostolic period through the patristic period. Rather, Jewell adopts the patristic period because that’s when we last had catholic unity of belief(Vincent of Lerins).  So, it’s not about whether there is development of doctrine; it’s about how to discern whether the development is faithful.

Phil Swain

Well, AndrewA (#28),

I’m actually out of my depth here too, since I’m a biblica scholar by training, not a church historian.  And I’ll freely grant that Dr. Witt is much better read in these matters than I am.  And so would be many other people, including Dr. Ashley Null, if we could only entice him to enter this discussion here.

You’re right, however, Andrew, that our Anglican rhetoric has always claimed that our middle way was not a matter of compromise for the sake of peace, but of “comprehensiveness” for the sake of truth.  My suspicion is that some of us have repeated that mantra, not compromise for the sake of peace but comprehensiveness for the sake of truth, for so long that we’ve eventually come to believe our own propaganda.

Alas, I can only speak personally here, but I think the historical facts belie that proud claim.  Our advertising just doesn’t ring true.  Our traditional boast really is unfortuantely just mere propaganda.  For the sad historical reality is that most of the time, Anglicanism has smacked much more of mere compromise for the sake of institutional (and social/political) peace than of any real comprehensiveness for the sake of fuller truth.

Others are free to disagree, of course.  But I think the state church, Christendom nature of the CoE has always strongly subordinated the Church to the State, and thus sadly favored compromise over genuine comprehensiveness.

But the ideal of seeking comprehensiveness rather than mere compromise is a powerful one, and it retains its appeal.  And at our best, we Anglicans have at least approached that ideal.  At least, some Anglican leaders have, at some times.  Enough to keep the ideal alive.

And the great John Jewel was one of the first to articulate that lofty vision, at least implicitly.  And his disciple Richard Hooker inherited Jewel’s mantle and advanced that claim to comprehensivess yet further.  So despite my rather inflammatory, provocative statements above, I think David Ould was right to pay tribute to Jewel with this thread.

For ever since Jewel’s famous Apology of 1562, the right answer to the question, “Is Anglicanism Reformed or Catholic?” has been the paradoxical answer…

We’re BOTH.

David Handy+

I am assuming that means that, apart from any anachronism,  Jewell would not deny that there was doctrinal development from the apostolic period through the patristic period.

Phil Swain,

Doctrinal Development is a slightly different discussion from Jewel’s, although related.  As I pointed out above, the whole notion of doctrinal development originated in the nineteenth century.

During Jewel’s time, the question was different.  Both sides in that debate assumed that any “doctrinal development” would have been a falling away from apostolic truth.  So the argument between Jewel and his Roman opponents was largely a recovery of historical facts—arguing about such things as whether or not one could find transubstantiation in the Fathers.

Jewel focused on the first five centuries because that was a fair limiting point for Catholic identity.  If Jewel’s opponents could not show that a specifically Roman dogma, e.g., transubstantiation, had been held during the first five centuries, or, conversely, Jewel could find church fathers of the first five centuries saying that the bread remained bread after consecration, then that discredited the Roman position that transubstantiation had always been the church’s historic position back to the apostles.

But neither side held to a notion of “doctrinal development,” as the term came to be understood after Newman.  By introducing the question of doctrinal development, Newman changed the terms of the debate.  It was no longer a question of what the Church had always believed, but rather, acknowledging that the church had later come to believe things that were not clearly in Scripture, and were not believed by the Fathers, whether these new doctrines (like transubstantiation) were necessary and legitimate developments of what the church had always believed.

IMHO, the definitive response to this question was that written by Newman’s brother-in-law, James Mozley, in his Theory of Development.  Mozley distinguished between developments that were a working out of the logical implications of the revelation found in Scripture (what I will call Development A), from Developments that were actual additions to the deposit of revelation (what I will call Development B).

So, the homoousios of Nicea, and the “two natures doctrine” of Chalcedon, were simply the logical working out of the New Testament teaching that Christ was genuinely God (John 1:1; Phil. 2:6), and genuinely human.  If Jesus really is who the Bible says he is, then, at some point, the church would have had to have come up with something like Nicea and Chalcedon as soon as the question was asked: Is Christ Creator or creature? Other dogmas, like transubstantiation, the Marian dogmas, the papacy, were not logical developments, but were actual additions to the deposit of faith.

Anglicans affirm development A, but not Development B. 

But, again, development of doctrine is not a notion that would have occurred either to Jewel or his opponents.

My, this is most refreshing and nice to have a discussion of church history—easily my favorite part of “study” as a Christian. 

For me, reading these sorts of things is like reading Tolkien—a pure pleasure.

I think I disagree that the vision of “via media” was a sham.  A part of this comes from an observation of the early turmoils of the COE, ironically.  But another part comes from my own personal life.

In my conversion to Anglicanism [as distinct from conversion to Christ, which is a different thing], I had recognized that I simply could not affirm the Westminster Confession.  And I came to realize that in part that was because I could not agree on the *nature* or the *why* or the *how* of the *what.*  I was Reformed, but simply not a Calvinist, at least in the way that word has come to mean and how Calvin has been interpreted [I have my suspicions about the latter, but that’s another issue].  And no amount of study or understanding would make me believe their explanations.  In the same way I was not Roman Catholic.  Correspondingly, running on a parallel track, I was recognizing that certain pietisms were also matters that I simply did not believe.

I didn’t believe that it was “wrong” to do various things that were on various lists—appreciate and enjoy, for instance, the attributes of pagans, which on several recent threads we were instructed as a matter of morality, not to do.  And when arguments from various friends and acquaintances were presented to me as to why something was wrong—that actually made my disagreement more intense.  Once one recognizes that the “why” of many things—like why it’s wrong for people to engage in mixed swimming or why it is wrong to listen to music with a certain rhythmic beat—is also riddled with error and irrationality and inconsistency and illogic, then one’s resistance becomes even more strengthened.

The more I watched groups of Christians, the more I noticed that eventually, if “deciding on the nature, and the why and the how,” along with an *additional list* of further things that were immoral, became *theologically vital and identifying to that group or Christian*—and if doing so became the *norm* for that group or that Christian, their lives became narrowed to tiny points of nihility.  Because the nature and the why and the how and the various lists of immoralities [beyond those of Scripture, which are strikingly and pointedly clear] were of primary importance to being a Christian, there was essentially no group that could really hold together—like a black hole, the group or the Christian collapsed in on itself, evacuated of vitality or growth.

There was a refreshing difference between that very black option, and the decisions of the Church of England regarding catholicism and reformation.

It was extremely rocky—and riddled with the wicked actions of the State.  But interwoven in that dark history is a path that does not go to Rome and does not go to Geneva.  And for that path—and for Richard Hooker and Cranmer—I am most grateful.

Despite my being in TEC, God has blessed me greatly as an Anglican.

Correspondingly, running on a parallel track, I was recognizing that certain pietisms were also matters that I simply did not believe.

Sarah, “Pietism” is something that you have refered to several times, yet I’m not quite sure what you mean by it, as my knowledge of Pietism, I’m forced to admit, is pretty much limited to Wikipedia.  Alas, I’m a history student (I almost called myself a historian, but since I’m not a published PhD I’m hesitant to claim that term), but not of Church history.  Would you mind expanding on what you mean when you refer to Pietism?

If I might venture to answer for Sarah, I don’t believe she is referring to Pietism with a capital “p” but, rather something like concrete practices of “piety,” characteristic of various religious groups. To give an example, when I became an Episcopalian, one of my Southern Baptist relatives was a bit concerned: “How could anyone become a Christian in a church without an invitation (altar call)?”

Various versions of Christianity have their own “pietisms,” which become substitutes for the gospel itself.  For some kinds of Lutherans, it is a correct understanding of the relationship between Law and Gospel, for Holiness churches, it is a particular understanding of sanctification, and for Pentecostals another, for Calvinists, it can be a specific understanding of covenantal or Federal theology.  Roman Catholics and Orthodox have their own, but I won’t venture to criticize traditions that are not my own.

Of course, Anglicanism often its own, often based on church party identity.  How one addresses ordained clergy can be a hint.  Is a particular version of the BCP a hill to die on?

These are not the gospel.

And I came to realize that in part that was because I could not agree on the *nature* or the *why* or the *how* of the *what.*

(1)  From the Zen Art of Conversation-Stopping, by Komprehend Icanna, Cryptic Press, 1989, Beta Edition, pp 34-OT ff.

  Contrary to John Jewel, the
Reformed/Protestant dimension can’t be simply equated with the true Catholic dimension, as represented by the early Fathers of the Church. That amounts to collapsing the Catholic dimension into the Reformed outlook, and
diminishing its otherness and challenge to the whole Protesant approach to the Christian faith and life.

So what you’re actually basically saying is “Jewel was wrong”.

I am assuming that means that, apart from any anachronism, Jewell would not
deny that there was doctrinal development from the apostolic period through
the patristic period. Rather, Jewell adopts the patristic period because
that’s when we last had catholic unity of belief(Vincent of Lerins). So,
it’s not about whether there is development of doctrine; it’s about how
to discern whether the development is faithful. 

On the contrary, it strikes me that Jewel was very dismissive of claims to “development’. His appeal to the church catholic was not on the basis that it developed doctrine in a catholic manner but that it retained the doctrine of the Scriptures and nothing more. At least, nothing more that should be required.

Contrary to John Jewel, the Reformed/Protestant dimension can’t be simply equated with the true Catholic dimension, as represented by the early Fathers of the Church.  That amounts to collapsing the Catholic dimension into the Reformed outlook, and diminishing its otherness and challenge to the whole Protesant approach to the Christian faith and life.

I had not noticed this earlier.  This would be a rather serious misreading of Jewel.  Jewel’s apologetic argument is never an appeal to a “Reformed/Protestant” dimension.  Such a tactic would have been worthless in his debate with his Roman opponents.  It would simply have confirmed their accusation that the Church of England had departed from the faith of the Catholic Church.

As I mentioned above, Jewel’s appeal is to the catholic identity of the Church of the first several centuries.  He appeals not to Geneva or Wittenberg, but to the Scriptures as interpreted through the Rule of Faith.  He appeals not to Calvin or even to Luther, but to the Fathers, and Jewel’s debate (over several volumes) with Harding (his Roman opponent) is very much a debate in the proper interpretation of patristic sources.

The debate between Jewel and Harding was very much one over the nature of Catholic identity.  For Jewel, Catholic identity is established the same way the 2nd century fathers established it in their refusal of Gnosticism: 1) canon of Scripture; 2) Rule of faith; 3) historical continuity with the apostolic and patristic Church (episcopacy).

For Harding, Catholic identity is established not as the 2nd century church established it, but as the late Western Medieval Church did—by submission to the bishop of Rome, along with necessary agreement that whatever the bishop of Rome taught in the seventeenth century was identical to what the Church of the apostles taught.

“The Convocation of 1571, which revised the Articles of 1562, and ordered them to be printed, drew up a body of Canons about twelve in number. The queen however refused to sign them when complete, and so they practically became a dead letter. A summary of their contents may be inserted: 1. Concerning the duties of bishops. 2. Concerning the duties of cathedral chapters. 3. Concerning the duties of archdeacons. 4. Concerning the duties of chancellors, commissaries, officials, and parish clergy. 5. Concerning the duties of churchwardens, viz. term of office, care of church buildings, i.e. fabric and due appointment for service, recusancy presentment, and act of ministers. 6. Concerning preachers. 7. Concerning the residence of beneficed clergy. 8. Concerning plurality. 9. Concerning schoolmasters. 10. Concerning patrons and proprietaries. 11. Concerning illegal marriages. 12. Form of excommunication.”[Editors’ Introduction, “Canon 6 - Concerning Preachers (1571),” Hanover Historical Texts Project, on the Internet at: http://history.hanover.edu/texts/ENGref/er82.html

The following is the full text of the famous “Concionatores” canon:

Canon 6. Concerning preachers.
No one without the bishop’s permission shall publicly preach in his parish, nor shall he venture hereafter to preach (concionari) outside his cure and church, unless he has received permission so to preach, either from the queen through all the parts of the realm, or the archbishop through his province, or from the bishop through his diocese. And no power to preach shall be hereafter valid or have any authority save only such as shall be obtained after the last day of April of the year 1571. Preachers shall behave themselves modestly and soberly in every department of their life. But especially shall they see to it that they teach nothing in the way of a sermon, which they would have religiously held and believed by the people, save what is agreeable to the teaching of the Old or New Testament, and what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected from this selfsame doctrine. And since those Articles of the Christian religion to which assent was given by the bishops in lawful and holy synod convened and celebrated [Page 477] by command and authority of our most serene princess, Elizabeth, were without doubt collected from the holy books of Old and New Testament, and in all respects agree with the heavenly doctrine which is contained in them; since, too, the book of public prayers, and book of the consecration (inauguratio) of archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, contain nothing contrary to this same doctrine, whoever shall be sent to teach the people shall confirm the authority and faith of those Articles not only in their sermons but also by subscription. Whoever does otherwise, and perplexes the people with contrary doctrine, shall be excommunicated. In preaching they shall use such modest and grave apparel (veste) as may befit and adorn the minister of God, and such as was described in the book of the Admonitions. And they shall not demand money or any fee for a sermon, but shall be content with merely food and equipment (apparatu), and one night’s hospitality. They shall not teach vain and old wives’ opinions and heresies, and papal errors, abhorrent to the teaching and faith of Christ, nor anything at all whereby the unlearned multitude be inflamed to love of novelty or contention. Moreover they shall always put forward such things as make to edification, and reconcile the hearers by Christian concord and love.

Henry Gee and William John Hardy, ed.,“Selection from the Canons of 1571,” Documents Illustrative of English Church History (New York: Macmillan, 1896), 476-7.

I believe both Gregory of Nazianzus and J. N. D. Kelly would disagree with, or at least wish to qualify, the idea that there was no notion of doctrinal development before Newman:

“To explain the lateness of His [the Spirit’s] recognition as God he [Gregory Nazianzus] produces a highly original theory of doctrinal development.” [Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, rev ed 261, referencing Gregory’s Theological Oration 31]

And of course Newman himself could always claim that the idea of development was itself a . . . well, development, i.e. something implicit in the Church’s self-understanding.  Of course, such an argument would quickly become circular, but then in the end so do all arguments about authority in a revealed religion.

I believe both Gregory of Nazianzus and J. N. D. Kelly would disagree with, or at least wish to qualify, the idea that there was no notion of doctrinal development before Newman:

IRNS,

My point was not to get into a debate about doctrinal development.  It may well be that Gregory had such a notion.  (Nor was it to enter into the debate about whether, and in what sense we might need to talk about it now.) The question had to do with whether either side of the debate at the time of the Reformation would have talked in terms of doctrinal development.  Both would have denied such a thing.  That is why Newman’s book was controversial, not only for Anglicans, but also for Roman Catholics in the nineteenth century, most of whom repudiated it as not in accord with Catholic dogma.  A glance at the typical Catholic theology manuals, which remained the standard for Roman theological eduction right up until Vatican II, continued to affirm that Roman Catholic teaching had been unchanging from the time of the apostles.

With regard to the objections of both David Ould (#36) and Dr. Witt (#38) concerning a provocative line in my #27 above, let me clarify what I did and didn’t mean.

David Ould charged me with basically saying that John Jewel was simply wrong, i.e., in equating the Reformed or Protestant dimension with the patristic/Catholic one.

Not exactly, David.  I think you missed my point.  In the course of arguing that the evangelical and catholic dimensions actually operate on different planes (a vital aspect of my “3-D” approach), I was insisting that the two dimensions don’t collide head on.  In that sense, I am thus in fundamental disagreement with BOTH sides of the 16th century debate.  In other words, yes, Jewel was wrong, but so was Robert (Cardinal) Bellarmine, perhaps the ablest Jesuit apologist of the Counter-Reformation.  BOTH the Protestants and the Catholics were wrong back then in some ways, and BOTH were right in other ways.

To be more exact, I think Jewel was basically right about justification by faith apart from works, but wrong about his sacramental theology and eccelesiology.  In those latter two areas, his claim to represent the consensus of the Fathers is yes simply wrong, historically speaking.  At the same time, his Protestant theological concerns were valid and honorable.

Now as for Dr. Witt’s objections, he has charged me with a serious misreading of Jewel.  Well, that is certainly debatable, and I freely concede that he has studied these matters more fully and intensively than I have.  But I stand by what I said above.  However, perhaps I can clarify again what I did and didn’t mean, because I’m not sure that has been grasped.

Historically, ALL the magisterial Reformers, whether Lutheran, (continental) Reformed, or Anglican CLAIMED that they weren’t innovators, but merely seeking to recover the authentic teaching of the early Fathers as well as the biblical writers.  Luther made that claim, as did Melancthon even more.  So did Bucer, not to mention Calvin and many lesser figures.  That was simply part and parcel of the standard Protestant apologetic.

But of course, that claim is only credible if you’re a rather one-sided Protestant.  I freely admit that I don’t find it convincing.  Now there were very important ways in which Luther, Calvin, and the rest of them, including Cranmer and Jewel, and yes, even Zwingli and Bullinger, were truly recovering vital aspects of the patristic inheritance that had been lost or obscured during the medieval era.  I don’t deny that for one moment.  And Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Cranmer, and Jewel could and did make some effective polemical use of the Fathers in those contentious, fierce debates with their Catholic opponents.  But then, so did a later Puritan like the great William Perkins, who was quite capable of citing the Fathers extensively in support of his rather moderate Reformed views (by the standards of that time).  But of course that doesn’t mean that all their historical claims were justified and tenable.  Some were.  Some weren’t.

But my point was simply that their claim that the Protestant position (whether that be in terms of Wittenberg, Geneva, Strasburg, Zurich, or Canterbury) was in fundamental accord with the Fathers is actually sharply at odds with fundamental aspects of that patristic heritage.  The truth is, IMHO, that the Catholic Church was indeed in much greater continuity with Fathers in some crucial ways.

So let me reframe the issue, if I may.  And in quite Pauline terms, that ought to rejoice the heart of any convinced Protestant.  In stoutly upholding BOTH the evangelical and the catholic dimensions, but not collaspsing one into the other or reducing the perpetual tension between them (as I’m afraid Jewel did do), I make sense out that perennial conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism this way. 

As Paul said about the Jews and the Gentiles in his day, so I firmly believe and ardently confess that we can likewise say,

God has consigned us ALL to disobedience, Protestants and Catholics alike (and Anglicans too), in order that He may have mercy upon us all alike.  (cf. Romans 11:32).

So yes, Rome erred.  And so did Geneva.  And Wittenberg.  And Canterbury and Salisbury too (Jewel’s see).

David Handy+

Thank-you, gentlemen, for taking the time to respond to my questions. I wasn’t trying to make an anachronistic point against Jewel, but,now looking back on his argument, don’t we agree that Jewel needed a theory of development to get him from the apostolic church to the patristic church? 

I think the Pope would agree with Jewel’s three marks of catholic identity as far as they go. 

I assume the writers of those theology manuals were affirming the unchanging substantial nature of the teachings as opposed to the accidental changes in the teachings.

Now as for Dr. Witt’s objections, he has charged me with a serious misreading of Jewel.  Well, that is certainly debatable, and I freely concede that he has studied these matters more fully and intensively than I have.

David,

I need to be clear that I was referring to one item, and one only, and that was that Jewel simply equated Reformed theology with Catholicism, i.e., in your words: “Contrary to John Jewel, the Reformed/Protestant dimension can’t be simply equated with the true Catholic dimension, as represented by the early Fathers of the Church.”

That is not at all Jewel’s argument.  Rather, Jewel locates the Catholicity of the Church of England precisely where a lot of contemporary church historians would mark the difference between Catholicism and Gnosticism in the 2nd Century: “Canon, Rule of Faith, Worship in Word and Sacrament, episcopacy.”  Jewel simply does not bring in the controverted distinctively Reformed/Protestant positions, so he does not “simply equate . . the Reformed/Protestant dimension . . . with the true Catholic dimension.”  This is one of the things that makes his apologetic very different from the Continental Reformers.

Is Jewel’s sacramental theology closer to the Patristic view than was that of Roman Catholicism?  That is a long and complicated debate that I discuss here.

I wasn’t trying to make an anachronistic point against Jewel, but,now looking back on his argument, don’t we agree that Jewel needed a theory of development to get him from the apostolic church to the patristic church?

Certainly Jewel would not think so.  What would you mean by development, and how would it be necessary?

I think the Pope would agree with Jewel’s three marks of catholic identity as far as they go.

Ah, but that’s precisely the point.  Would the pope agree that Jewel’s three marks of catholic identity were sufficient?  Or would the pope insist, to the contrary, that in addition to the three marks of catholic identity, submission to the Roman magisterium was absolutely necessary to be catholic?

I assume the writers of those theology manuals were affirming the unchanging substantial nature of the teachings as opposed to the accidental changes in the teachings.

Actually not.  The manuals were notorious for advocating a rather rigid and static notion of dogma.  Any change whatsoever was suspicious.

Bill (#44),

Thanks for the valuable clarification.  I think we were probably talking past each other, but again I’ll happily grant that you know much more about Jewel than I do.  And you also doubtless care much more about his work than I do too.

David Handy+

Dr.Witt, would you mind listing your required reading for your Anglican Way of Theology course?

[42] David Handy+

So yes, Rome erred.  And so did Geneva. 

That’s sort of like saying “Joseph Smith erred, and so did Charles Wesley.”  Not all errors are in the same category.  Some errors are more significant than others.

carl

Nevin,

I am currently re-designing the course.  As soon as I finish the syllabus, I would be glad to post what the students are reading this fall.

carl (#48),

I’m happy to say that I wholeheartedly agree with you.  As you rightly note, “Some errors are more significant than others.”  Amen, brother.  Vatican II aptly called that concept “the hierarchy of truths.”

And just to get more specific, some errors involve theological issues that are so important that our salvation hangs on them, which isn’t true of lesser disputed matters.  The trick, of course, is having the wisdom to tell the difference between the essential truths necessary to saving faith in Christ and the non-essential ones.

My point, however, was to emphasize that God is quite capable of using highly fallible human channels to convey his saving gospel.  Or to quote that Reformed hymn writer, William Cowper, “God writes straight with crooked lines.”  And yes, I think that even extends to the biblical writers themselves.

Amicably,
David Handy+

I’m happy to say that I wholeheartedly agree with you.

I’m glad you were able to throw Carl a biscuit on agreeing that some truths are more important than others.  Unfortunately, when I pan out on the truism, I see a faulty analogy being made between Joseph Smith and Rome, vs Wesley and Geneva… something I am quite sure you find as troublesome as I do, myself. 

I would probably have to at least modify the analogy such that everything conformed to our creeds, or modify it such that our creeds were not a factor at all.  But, then Carl wouldn’t get his biscuit.  On the other hand, I’m also pretty sure that he could quite happily live without it.

Moot (#51),

LOL.  Yes, naturally I noted the little barb you mentioned, but I wasn’t particularly troubled by it.  It’s just par for the course, between carl and me.  We enjoy teasing each other.

But I’m glad you emerged from your lurking mode, Moot.  I wish you wouldn’t be as reticent as you have been lately.  Could I entice you to make more comments if I threw you an occasional biscuit too?  Just wondering…

David Handy+

Topical Categories:

a)  The two syllable word that must not be named, nor spoken of outloud;
b)  The amount of breathe God has breathed into the Scriptures;
c)  Stuff you caught first, and I cannot add to;
d)  Polymical differences;
e)  Carl (where we differ)
f)  Carl (where we agree)
g)  Me, making up for my lack of a seminary degree, with stupid jokes, etc. 

(a) & (b) are what they are.  I’ve moved on. 
(c) - if something can’t be added, then no comment is possible anyhow.
(d) Very rarely pops up - usually it’s complimentary, but when it isn’t, most of the time isn’t worth commenting upon.
(e) & (f) Pops up more frequently, but isn’t that interesting.
(g)  What can I say ??

Look, if I’m going to get a bisquit, then I better get some milk to go with it.

carl

Carl,
Stay away from any milk for NRA. 

You could end up wearing robes or something, dancing around speaking a tongue you never learned….

Stick to the milk of the Word.

[55] Bo

You could end up wearing robes or something, dancing around speaking a tongue you never learned…

David Handy+ speaks in tongues on this weblog all the time.  As far as I can tell, it’s an unknown language of post-modern scholarship, but there is never an interpreter present.  All the words seem to be formed from some combination of the syllables “jay”, “ee”, “pea”, and “dee.”  I’m safe from his wiles though because I am a cessationist.

carl

See Catholic <a >here</a> and <a >here</a>

sorry. here

and here

Bo (#55)and carl (#56),

LOL.  But while I enjoy being ribbed around here, I think we’re getting off-topic too long.  So in the attempt to get back to John Jewel and his ringing defense of the CoE against Catholic criticisms, I’ll just note that Jewel would doubtless have disapproved of my wearing a chasuble, as I did when I celebrated eucharist ten days ago, even though it’s implicitly allowed by the rubrics of the 1559 BCP that he used.  And I suspect he would’ve been even more bothered by the fact that I pray in tongues fairly often as a charismatic (and ex-Pentecostal).

Carl is simply being a good Calvinist in being a cessationist with regard to the miraculous gifts of the Spirit.  I don’t blame him for that.

But it’s another good illustration of my basic point above, namely, that all sides have erred.  Just as Calvin erred in assuming that the gifts ceased with the death of the apostles, or the appearnace of the whole NT (wink).

For as I asserted above, in Paul’s language, “God has consigned us all to disobedience, in order that he might have mercy upon us all,” Protestant, Catholic, and Anglican alike.  ALL of us can only claim to represent “the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” of the Nicene Creed through sheer grace alone, and not by any human merit.

On that particular point, when all is said and done, I’m surprisingly Protestant.  It’s one place where the evangelical dimension of my “3-D Christianity” comes out.

David Handy+

Handy,
Your digression is much longer than mine.

I’m not bothered by fancy dress, kinda like it in fact.

However, I do hope you keeping your praying in tongues in the closet, unless of course you’ve a translator standing by…..

The one holy catholic church must, in each of its local incarnations, exercise discipline - we are saved by grace alone, but if our walk is not in the light, we are not of Him.

Bo,

Touche.  Yes, my digression was indeed longer.  But I was trying to lead us back on topic.

And yes, I only pray in tongues privately, as Paul apparently did.  You’ll recall that in 1 Cor. 14, the Apostle informs us that he prayed in tongeus even more than those proud charismaniac showoffs in Corinth did.  Which must’ve been a lot.  I don’t claim to be his equal.

David Handy+

Carl,
Like the early Christians, in white robes, hand in hand, in a circle, in the tripudium step—three steps forward, pause, one step back, three steps forward, pause, one step back, and so on, jubilating in wordless singing.

The early Church fathers did not consider the practice of “jubilation” the same thing as speaking in tongues. Rather they considered it a natural response to grace—a form of prayer that even children could learn.

In regard to this practice Augustine wrote:

“The people shouted God’s praises without words, but with such a noise that our ears could scarcely stand it. What was there in the hearts of all this clamoring crowd but the faith of Christ, for which St. Stephen shed his blood?”

He further wrote:

“Lo and behold, he sets the tune for you himself, so to say; do not look for words, as if you could put into words the things that please God. Sing in jubilation: singing well to God means, in fact, just this: singing in jubilation.”

John Chrysostom wrote:

” “It is permitted to sing psalms without words, so long as the mind resounds within”

In his article, “Happy Are the People Who Know the Festal Shout,” Darrel Pursiful points to our attention:

“From the fourth to the ninth centuries a particular form of liturgical jubilation would begin with an improvised flourish on the final syllable of ‘alleluia’ and might continue for up to five minutes of wordless singing. Other ancient and medieval sources describe jubilation as including such phenomena as hand clapping, cooing, dancing, and even what modern Pentecostals might call ‘holy laughter.’ Although this custom is not explicitly attested before the fourth century, it may correspond to New Testament references to ‘spiritual songs’ (Col 3:16) or ‘singing in the spirit’ (1 Cor 14:15). Some even suggest the origins of jubilation go back to synagogue practice (Donald P. Hustad, ‘Music in the Worship of the New Testament,’ The Complete Library of Christian Worship, vol. 4 (StarSong, 1994) 192).”

In regards to the practice of dancing in the Christian assembly Ambrose wrote:

“The Lord bids us dance, not merely with the circling movements of the body, but with the pious faith in him”

Much later William Tyndale, in his prologue to his translation of the New Testament (1525) wrote:

“Evangelion (that we call the gospell) is a Greek word; and signifieth good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that maketh a man’s heart glad, and maketh him sing, dance, and leap for joy. As when David had killed Goliah the giant, came glad tidings unto the jewes, that their fearful and cruel enemy was slain, and they delivered out of all danger: for gladness whereof, they sung, danced, and were joyful. In like manner is the Evangelion of God (which we call Gospel; and the New Testament) joyful tidings; and as some say, a good hearing published by the apostles throughout all the world, of Christ the right David how that he hath fought with sin, with death, and the devil, and overcome them. Whereby all men that were in bondage to sin, wounded with death, overcome of the devil, are with out their own merits or deservings, loosed, justified, restored to life, and saved, brought to liberty, and reconciled unto the favour of God, and set at one with him again: which tidings as many as believe, laud praise and thank God; are glad, sing and dance for joy.”

He goes on to write:

“This evangelion or gospell (that is to say, such joyful tidings) is called the new testament. Because that as a man when he shall die appointeth his goods to be dealt and distributed after his death among them which he nameth to be his heirs. Even so Christ before his death commanded and appointed that such evangelion, gospell, or tidings should be declared through out all the world, and there with to give unto all that believe all his goods, that is to say, his life, where with he swallowed and devoured up death: his righteousness, where with he banished sin: his salvation, where with he overcame eternal damnation.  Now can the wretched man (that is wrapped in sin, and is in danger to death and hell) hear no more joyous a thing, then such glad and comfortable tidings, of Christ.  So that he cannot but be glad and laugh from the low bottom of his heart, if he believe that the tidings are true.”

The practice of jubilation disappeared by the tenth century. The practice of dancing in church was banned both in Protestant and Catholic churches in the sixteenth century. Interestingly the most popular sixteenth century Lutheran chorales and Reformed metrical psalms were set to dance tunes.

David, #59
The Advertisements permitted only the wearing of the surplice in parish churches and the surplice and the cope in cathedrals and college chapels. The only clergy that were exempt from the Advertisements, as I recall, were the royal chaplains. The greatest controversy of the period was not over not being able to wear eucharistic vestments but being required to wear a surplice in church and distinctive dress—black cassock and square cap—in public.

AnglicansAblaze (#63),

Yes, I know that was the usual understanding, but the bitter 19th century legal wrangling over vestments uncovered evidence that things weren’t in fact historically so clear.  Consider the case of the godly bishop of Lincoln, Edward King (IIRC).  The legal conclusion reached was that the obscure rubric that allows for vestments to be worn as in the days of Edward VI (before or after the reform?) was ambiguous enough to allow traditional catholic eucharistic vestments.

But I grant your main point.  You’re right.  The main issue in John Jewel’s time was whether clergy were required to wear “popish rags” like the traditional cassock and surplice, or whether they could wear proper Reformed garments like the scholar’s academic gown, as in Geneva.

But FWIW, when I celebrated eucharist ten days ago, I also chanted the eurcharistic prayer in traditional plainsong fashion.  Of course, that’s according to patristic tradition, not Reformed tradition.  And that’s the point, isn’t it?  What tradition you want to identify with in the end.

To reframe the issue, if I may, I think the question isn’t really whether or not Jewel was right in his interpretation of the Fathers, which I personally think was often contrived and strained.  He seemed to only be interested in the Fathers for apologet purposes, not for actually letting them set the main parameters of proper theology and practice.  That is, I think the real issue is this:
Will we Anglicans read the Fathers through the eyes of the Reformers, or vice versa?  Which group is to be regarded as the primary interpreters of Holy Scripture?  Or is it sometimes one, and sometimes the other?

Now the Puritan minded among us (like Matt, carl, David Ould, and the Sydney gang) would insist that the English Reformers remain normative for us today, and that they are primary and the Fathers secondary.  I would say the opposite.  And of course, I’m not alone in that.

But when it comes to liturgical practice, in light of the key principle lex orandi, lex credendi, it’s a significant historical fact that chanting long continued in the CoE after the Reformation, even if it often modulated into Anglican Chant instead of Gregorian.  And that wasn’t true in Geneva, or Strasburg, much less Zurich.  Although it was true in Wittenberg, and in Stockholm.

And BTW, thank you for posting the obscure 1571 Canon I had called attention too earlier.  That was helpful.

David Handy+

To reframe the issue, if I may, I think the question isn’t really whether or not Jewel was right in his interpretation of the Fathers, which I personally think was often contrived and strained.  He seemed to only be interested in the Fathers for apologet purposes, not for actually letting them set the main parameters of proper theology and practice.

NRA,

I think this a standard reading of the (English) Reformation by both (certain kinds of Anglo- and Roman) Catholics and certain kinds of Evangelicals.  Both of these groups (for opposite reasons) want to claim that the Reformation was really an anti-Catholic movement, and therefore refuse to take at face value the claims of Reformers (particularly Anglicans and Lutherans) to be not about jettisoning catholicity, but reforming a corrupt late Medieval catholicism. 

I was happily cured of this understanding (I was tempted to write prejudice) by some good teachers—first, a Baptist(!) church history professor at my undergraduate college, who introduced me to the writings of Augustine and Aquinas, and, secondly, Roman Catholic faculty during my graduate school education, who introduced me to the more irenic Reformation historiography that followed Vatican II, including people like Heiko Oberman.  Lastly, my own research as a historical theologian made me familiar with numerous Reformed Catholics/Catholic Evangelicals in unexpected places—Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed—who were clearly in a positive dialogue with the earlier patristic and even Medieval Catholic tradition. 

One can, of course, assume that all of this was disingenuous, or, as, you write, “polemical,” but I find myself puzzled at this suggestion.  If Reformers wanted to repudiate Catholicism as “Anti-Christ,” they could certainly do so, and many did.  There was a risk (especially in Jewel’s England, where there was a strong Puritan opposition) in too closely associating oneself with anything catholic.  I obviously cannot prove that Jewel was sincere, but, having read almost completely through his several volumes, I find it difficult to believe that the whole thing was merely a charade.

That is, I think the real issue is this:
Will we Anglicans read the Fathers through the eyes of the Reformers, or vice versa?  Which group is to be regarded as the primary interpreters of Holy Scripture?

I find this a false dichotomy.  One of the reasons I am an Anglican is that it allows me to read and learn equally from Irenaeus, Augustine, Cyril, Chrysostom, Aquinas, Luther, Cranmer, Hooker, Herbert, Donne, Ramsey, Barth, von Balthasar, and N. T. Wright, among countless others.  And Jewel.

Or is it sometimes one, and sometimes the other?

It is certainly all of the above, all of the time.

[64] David Handy

Now the Puritan minded among us (like Matt, carl, David Ould, and the Sydney gang)...

Thank you for that compliment. 

... would insist that the English Reformers remain normative for us today, and that they are primary and the Fathers secondary.

No, I wouldn’t, actually.  The Scripture is “The norm of norms that is not normed” and both the Reformers and the ECFs are subjected to it.  The Institutes do not norm Scripture.  Scripture norms the Institutes.  Sola Calvin would be no different from and no better than the Sola Ecclesia of Rome.

carl

Bill Witt wrote:

One of the reasons I am an Anglican is that it allows me to read and learn equally from Irenaeus, Augustine, Cyril, Chrysostom, Aquinas, Luther, Cranmer, Hooker, Herbert, Donne, Ramsey, Barth, von Balthasar, and N. T. Wright, among countless others.  And Jewel.

My Dear Professor,
Methinks you are being too harsh with Jewel. Irrespective, you have captured the essence of Anglicanism. Splendid. Simply splendid. Would that others here come to appreciate your broad and irenic view of the Anglican Tradition.

Dr. Witt (#65),

Thanks for your illuminating clarification, but I stand by what I wrote.  ALL the magisterial Reformers INTENDED and WANTED to merely reform a corrupt church, not start a brand new one, even Zwingli and Bullinger in Zurich.  That was their noble ideal.  But it wasn’t the actual result.  Sad, but regrettably all too true.

That doesn’t make the Reformers guilty of being “disingenuous,” IMHO.  It just shows that good intentions are never enough.  Certainly, there are different degrees of continuity and discontinuity between various Reformers and the Great Tradition of the universal Church.  But my own reading of the various Reformations of the 16th century leads me to think that in general the Lutheran Reformation in Germany and especially in Sweden was actually more successful at maintaining more continuity with the pre-Reformation Church than the English Reformation was.  However, the fuzziness of the English Reformation allowed the CoE room to eventually recover (starting with the Caroline Divines) a more robustly catholic/pastristic style of Christianity than was possible within the more rigid straitjacket of the continental Churches bound by the great Augsburg Confession.

But I’m happy to agree with you that one of the glories of the Anglican tradition is its remarkable breadth.  Thus, e.g., Hooker drew readily upon Thomas Aquinas and the natural law tradition in his disputes with the Puritans, and the priceless Private Prayers of Lancelot Andrewes draw upon a rich, wide vein of Catholic spirituality.  I enjoy reading, with profit, all the theological worthies you listed in your #65, and more besides, just as you do.

But I guess the question remains, can the proud (and sincere) claims of men like Luther and Melancthon, or Bucer, or Jewel to stand WITHIN the Great Tradition and seeking to purify it rather than replace it with something new actually be taken at face value?  Alas, I don’t think so.  But obviously that’s a highly debatable matter, and probably one that doesn’t lend itself to being resolved in a forum like this one.  Blogs just aren’t good for balanced, comprehensive, nuanced assessments of complicated topics such as that highly complex, controversial matter.

Nonetheless, your contributions to this thread have been helpful and insightful, as always.

BTW, I’m bowing out of this thread now.  And I won’t be posting on any other SF threads either for over a week.  I’m going on vacation.  And I won’t be taking my laptop.

I’m sure you’ll all carry on just fine without me.  And carl can find someone else to tease for a while.

Amicably,
David Handy+

David, #64

That is, I think the real issue is this:
Will we Anglicans read the Fathers through the eyes of the Reformers, or vice versa?  Which group is to be regarded as the primary interpreters of Holy Scripture?  Or is it sometimes one, and sometimes the other?

Or do we recognize Scripture as the primary interpreter of Scripture and all commentators on Scripture, ancient, sixteenth century, or contemporary, as subject to Scripture?

David, #64
In the sixteenth and early seventeenth century chant persisted only in cathedrals and college chapels that had choirs. A number of the composers who wrote chant settings during the reign of Elizabeth I were Catholic Recusants. It was not the general population who attended the services in the cathedrals and college chapels but the upper echelons of the church and society. 

On the other hand, the metrical psalm was the preferred form of church music in parish churches which the general population attended. Metrical psalms were so popular that larger crowds gather in public squares to sing them for several hours at a time. Laborers sung them in field and workshop, housewives in the kitchen.

Sternhold and Hopkins Old Version of the Psalms of David includes metrical versions of Prayer Book Canticles, the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Gloria, the Lord’s Prayer, and even the Quinque Vult. (George Wither’s Hymns and Songs of the Churchwith tunes by Orlando Gibbons includes metrical versions of Old and New Testament Canticles not in the 1559 Book of Common Prayer.) In parish churches they replaced the prose versions.

Charles I suppressed this practice. This and other so-called “reforms” that Charles and his Archbishop, William Laud, forced on the parish churches generated a great deal of resentment among the general population and eventually contributed to their fall from power and the loss of their heads.

Metrical psalm singing, led by the village singers and accompanied by the village musicians, standing or seated in a gallery of the parish church, was the primary form of church music in parish churches until the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century the Oxford movement suppressed what is known today as “west gallery music,” and replace the village singers with choir boys in vestments and the village musicians with organs. West Gallery music has enjoyed something of a revival in recent years. It particular suited to services in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

In my experience in Anglican and Episcopalian churches, I’ve encountered praise bands, organs, small amateur orchestras that might be comprable to “village musicians” and choirboys in vestments.  My personal prefference is choirboys in vestments, but all have been good, and none have been worth killing people over.  Geez. Some people have some odd hangups.

Just a thought: Though I’m not really into rap, it would be interesting to see what a competent rap or hip-hop artist could do with the Psalter.  I’m not recommending it for Sunday worship, but it would be interesting.  After all, rap is essentially a form of chant.

AndrewA [72]

I hope I am not getting too off-topic. A book I believe is worth reading is Betty Pulkingam’s Sing God a Simple Song, now out of print but on the Internet at: http://www.communityofcelebration.com/Books/sgass.pdf
It was written for Anglican and Episcopal churches in the 1980s but most, if not all, of what Pulkingham wrote is still relevant to today’s churches. I greatly benefited in my own music ministry in reading her book, as well as attending a Come Celebrate workshop that one of the Community of Celebration’s Fisher Folk teams conducted in San Antonio, Texas in the late 1980s. Over the years I have come to see the church music of different periods in church history and of different countries as a part of the witness of the invisible church across time and around the world.

I think that we blunt that witness when we insist on using only one or two styles of church music. At the same time I also believe that it is important that we offer the best of each style of church music. We also do our best with whatever musical resources that we have. This may limit what types of music we can do well but whatever we can do, we should do well.

Thom Rainer in his research found that what made the most difference to first time visitors was not the style of church music that a church used but the way that a church did the church music that it did.  How the church did the music of its worship revealed to the first time visitor how serious the members of the church were about worshiping God.

I believe that when we gather to worship God on a Sunday morning and to praise him with our lips, our gathering should follow a week in which we have praised God with our lives and begin a week in which we do the same. A life filled with the praise of God in all we do and say, think and fee, shows in how we worship on Sunday morning, in how we sing the hymns and other songs, in how we pray, in how we read God’s Word, which is itself a form of praise, declaring the mighty works of the One who called us out of darkness into his wondrous light.

AnglicansAblaze (#69, 70),

Thanks for your irenic, thoughtful comments.  I’m back from vacation now, after about ten days.  I’m happy to say that I’m in basic agreement with you.

OF COURSE, Scripture is to be the primary interpreter of Scripture.  Naturally.  After all, Catholics believe that too, just as much as Protestants do.  The real issue is the “perspecuity” (clarity) of Holy Scripture, once you get beyond the matters necessary to know to have saving faith in Christ.  Or to use the language of Article VI, granting the “sufficiency” of the Bible as the Word of God in those vital matters necessary to salvation, the question remains, is the Bible “sufficient” for all else as well?  The Protestant inctinct is to reject the need for any living, authoritative magisterium to settle disputes about the proper interpretation of Holy Scripture.

And alas, I think our current crisis, not only in worldwide Anglicanism but throughout the Christian Global North, is precisely a crisis in the ability to interpret Scripture both faithfully and authoritatively.  And it’s our lack of a real magisterium that’s killing us as Anglicans. 

In the end, it always comes down to the very practical question, “Who gets to decide?”  Who finally gets to settle the dispute?

And that’s why I insisted above that we all are faced (as individuals) with the fateful, unavoidable choice of determining which interpreters we will generally follow.  Will it be the Fathers, or the Reformers?  Or sometimes one and sometimes the other?

And what I was implying was that, to use a political analogy, I myself refuse to vote a straight party ticket.  Just like I’m an independent voter who refuses to blindly vote for all Republican candidates (although I naturally vote for a lot more Republicans than Democrats), I similarly refuse to support the Protestant line as always correct, much less the Roman Catholic one.  As an Anglican, I’m NEITHER Protestant nor Catholic, in any clear, unequivocal way.  Or better yet, I’m BOTH evangelical and catholic, and charismatic to boot.  ALL THREE dimensions are essential.

And yet I’m deeply committed to following the Vincentian Canon and believing that which has been believed “everywhere, always, and by all,”  which would include BOTH the early Fathers and the great Reformers.

And in particular, I’ve roundly asserted above, contra Dr. Witt (if I’ve understood correctly) and John Jewel, that the evangelical and catholic dimensions can’t be merely collapsed into one, or permanently “reconciled” through adopting some course midway between the two (the fond illusion of a via media).  Rather, I earnestly contend that Evangelical and Catholic dimensions are ideals that are imperfectly represented and institutionalized by the Protestant and Catholic wings of the Church today.  Though in general I think the patristic Church did a better job of holding all three dimenisons together and in fruiful tension than the Protestant reformers did, necessary as their drastic reforms were.

David Handy+

Fr David,

I’m curious: how are you able to include the ideas of the Reformers in the grouping of that which has been believed “everywhere, always and by all”?

Welcome back!

Thanks, Fidela.  The vacation was refreshing, but it’s always nice to be home again, and resuming familiar routines, like blogging.

Let’s talk privately about the Reformers might be understood to exemplify, at least in part, the noble ideal of upholding and publicly teaching the classic threefold standard of Vincent: quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.  I do believe, as Dr. Witt does, that in many ways the magisterial Reformers, including John Jewel, did indeed revive and restore some essential aspects of that precious universal heritage of all Christians, of all times and places.  In fact, I’ve long argued that Martin Luther and John Calvin should both be considered “Doctors of the Church.”  Along with the 36 figures currently recognized by Rome as universal Doctors or teachers of the whole Church.

But none of them were infallible.  And that most certainly includes Cranmer, Jewel, Hooker, or any other great Anglican theologian or leader.

David Handy+

Its good to see at least some recognition in the posts above that the reformers did not see themselves as “splittists”, but rather as men who sought to reform the existing European church.

However, there is perhaps too little recognition that a common thread runs through the thought of most of the 16th century reformers, i.e. that there does come a point where catholicity must give way to doctrinal truth. In the end, if the people with whom you share a catholic church resist reform to the point of apostasy, then at some point a true christian has to separate from them.

There is a lesson here for our time: we have learned that the current apostasy is so widespread that it can only be dealt with by separation. We follow in the steps of our predecessors. The time to dialogue with the unfaithful after the manner of Grossteste, Bacon or Wyclif has passed; now is the time of Latimer and Zwingli.

It is true that Luther, Melanchthon, Tyndale, Zwingli et. al sought at first to stay within a reformed european catholic church, just as their spiritual predecessors had done: men like Occam, Wyclif, Marsilius and Hus. However, the 16th century reformers were willing to consider separation to a degree that the 13th and 14th century reformers were not, because they had seen the savagery of which the reactionary forces were capable. This was most graphically demonstrated by the repression of the early 15th century: the Council of Constance, the persecution of the Lollards, the desecration of Wyclif’s corpse and the burning of John Hus.

In the 14th century, reformers who dared to voice criticism of the Papacy could find a precarious protection: William of Occam was sheltered by the Emperor, John Wyclif by numerous powerful persons in England. But by the 16th century, there was a growing realisation that the existing hierarchies and structures of the church were so susceptible to misuse by evil and corrupt men, that true reform required separation.

What today we would call protestant doctrine as exemplified by the teachings of Wyclif had never died out in Europe. It existed (indeed was simply part of the mainstream) before Wyclif, and it continued widespread after his death. But the persecutions of Constance drove it largely out of public view for a hundred years.

Those who held to “protestant” or “wyclifite” teachings did so out of conviction. They could be silenced by the threat of burning, but not stopped. However, nobody at the time seems to have realised how widespread these teachings were. We know that Tyndale in England and Zwingli in Switzerland had developed their theology before Luther nailed his theses to the church door in 1517, for example, but they did so quietly, and no doubt many others were keeping the faith alive. Yet in God’s providence, it was Luther’s theses that were the catalyst - they were spread so rapidly by printing press and word of mouth, that they clearly expressed what many people already believed.

soli deo gloria

Stefano [6] asked why Latin and eulogos [12] replied “that was the language of intellectual discussion and debate at that time.”

That is partly correct. It was the language of intellectual discussion and debate at time. But there is also a practical reason why Jewel wrote this in Latin and not English. It has to do with his intended audience. If Jewel were seeking to explain the Church of England to Englishmen then he could have written in English. But Jewel’s intended audience was not Englishmen (who were already inside the Church of England) but rather foreign theologians and other learned and influential people outside of England (typically those in other Protestant countries in Europe). Jewel was seeking to explain the Church of England to non-Anglicans who might have had all kinds of strange ideas about whether it really was a Reformed church. His intended audience didn’t speak English. So in addition to the fact that Latin was the language of scholarship at the time there is also a very practical reason why it’s in Latin.