is, that communion was to be public and in church. For Jewel,
communion was something obtained by the people when they
participated together; an act of the people, not a union with Christ
effected through the presence of the human nature of Christ in the
elements. Jerome’s denunciation of receiving at home was seen as a
denunciation of the ‘private Mass’: ‘that in his tyme some used to receyve
in their houses, but he [Jerome]earnestly inveigheth against that maner.
Why (sayeth he) doe they not come into the church? Is Christ sometyme
abrode in the commonplace, sometyme at home in the howset?’^36
Rastell reproduced the entirety of the passage from Jerome to show
that this had nothing to do with some abuse of not communicating in the
Church, but dealt rather with the ancient Christian customs of fasting
and abstaining from conjugal relations prior to partaking of the
Eucharist. Thus Jerome’s condemnation was leveled against those who
would have had sexual relations with their wives and then received the
sacrament at home, even though they dared not go to the church for the
Martyrs’ feasts or for any other Eucharist celebrated in the local parish
after having had intercourse with their spouse. Rastell then cited the
unexpurgated Jerome:
I know that this custome is in Rome, that the faythfull doe at all
tymes receyve the bodye of Christ which thing I doe neither reprove,
neither allow, for every man abundeth in his owne sense. But I aske
of theyr consciencies, which doe communicate the same day, after
they have had carnall knowledge of theyr wyves, et iuxta Persium,
noctem flumine purgant, wherefore they dare not goe unto the
Martyrs? wherfor they go not unto the church? ys Christ one
abrode, and another at home? that which ys not lawfull in the
church, ys not lawfull at home etc.^37
Jewel managed to mangle texts even when they were drawn from
Protestants, namely Luther. In Luther’s audience before Cajetan in
Augsburg in October 1518 he and the Dominican cardinal had argued
over the nature of faith required for the sacraments to be efficacious.
Jewel drew from Luther’s response to argue that the Catholic Church
taught that the Eucharist was efficacious unto redemption regardless of
the state of faith of the communicant. Not only did Jewel not present
correctly Cajetan’s sentiments, but in quoting him he deletes part of
Cajetan’s assertion, one which Luther did not. ‘Accessuro ad
sacramentum necessarium est ut credat sese gratiam consequi, et in hoc
non dubitare sed certissima fiducia confidere, alioquin in iudicium
accedit.’ First, Jewel substituted ‘eucharistiam’ for ‘sacramentum’, a
necessity since what he was arguing concerning the Eucharist was not in
132 JOHN JEWEL AND THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH
(^36) Jewel, quoted in Rastell, Confutation,f. 129a. Italics are Rastell’s.
(^37) John Rastell, A Replie against an Answere(Antwerp: Aegidius Diest, 1565), f. 130a.
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