waie’.^51 Rastell wanted to know ‘where find you not onelye within. vjC
yeares of Christ, but wihtin vj and vj hundred and take three more unto
them, that the people were taught to beleve, that the body of Christ is
onlye figurativelye, sacramentalile, significativelye, tropicallie,
imagniativelie, in the Sacrament, to the denyall of all preference and
realitie?’^52 In Rastell’s mind, Jewel was trying to divert attention from the
most important matters separating the rivals so that he could score
polemical points over trifles:
Lett one sentence, example, authoritye, worde, or sillable, be
browght furth, of a bodye, onelye figurative and significative: and he
shall have the victorye. yea but (sayeth he) the reall, corporall,
carnall, naturall presence, was not preached or tawght, at those
dayes, ergo a figurative bodyeonelye was beleved. And thus whiles
we stryve upon termes onely, we spend the time in a question not
necessarie, and he will not consider the truth, in it self, and it is.
Christ sayd, this is my bodey which shalbe delyvered for yow.Saye
the truth, Is not this, playne enowgh?^53The Catholic polemic against Jewel touching the Eucharist focused on
several items: the meaning of the words of institution, the significance of
consecration and oblation, how Christ is present in the Supper, whether
communion is a divine act or a human one, and how the Eucharist
effected the communion of the saints.
The Recusants pillaged the Church Fathers for numerous quotations
that the flesh which was present on earth in the Incarnation was none
other than that which was present on the altar, and while Jewel certainly
parried many of these polemical thrusts, the great weight of them
certainly accumulated beyond what Jewel answered. With the sole
exception of some of the arguments of Thomas Harding, Jewel never
addressed any of the other works that responded to his Challenge, some
of them far more refined and articulate than Harding’s. The relish with
which the Catholics took up the Challenge seemingly excelled the
normal commonplaces of Reformation controversy, as shown by the
volume of their replies. For Jewel, the influence of Peter Martyr, and
perhaps the specter of Thomas Cranmer, propelled the direction of his
Eucharistic thought. For the Catholics the basic question of the
sacraments was the basic question of redemption itself: how does the
Christian participate in the life of Christ and thus overcome the curse of
sin and death. For the Catholics the answer was obvious: through the
life-giving sacraments of the Church that united the Christian to life
itself. Rastell built upon the patristic tropes of salvation as union with
140 JOHN JEWEL AND THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH
(^51) Dorman,Certayn Articles, f. 68a.
(^52) Rastell,Confutation, f. 140a.
(^53) Ibid., f. 140b. Italics are Rastell’s.
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