himself with Jewel as well. Stapleton had already entered the lists against
Jewel in 1565 with his A Fortresse of Faithe first planted amonge us
englishmen, a work built upon his translation, also published in 1565, of
the venerable Bede’s History of the Church of England.
A recurrent theme in all three of Stapleton’s works is the unity of the
Church, not only over space but also over time. Stapleton’s essential
purpose in translating Bede, a notable thing in and of itself,^76 was to
demonstrate that the faith of Bede, a faith expressed in the eighth century
was identical to the faith of the English and the rest of the Church in the
first six. Bede’s testimony became the substance of Stapleton’s Fortresse,
and it is from this vantage that he launched his attack on Jewel, asserting
that England’s creed in the last 900 years was that of the first 600. Yet
Stapleton’s arguments were not some collection of proofs culled together
to compete in some form of gamesmanship against Jewel, but to bolster
several essential affirmations that Catholics in general held against all
Protestants. Stapleton maintained as axiomatic that Christ’s Church
could never fall from its essential purity, even though at times rascals
may creep in. Were this so, Stapleton wrote, then the testimonies of the
Scriptures and even Christ himself, were of no value, and in the event
there was no faith to be held. Stapleton attacked the Protestant sine quo
nonof the Church’s defectibility throughout his first section. But in
Chapter Eight he makes his most sustained case for the perpetual
resilience of the Church by linking it to the doctrine of the Incarnation,
and with it Christ’s promise to remain with the Church till the end of the
age. The connection Stapleton made between the perseverance of the
Church predicated on the Incarnation and the sacraments is palpable.
To say that Christ had a church so many hundred years, but a blinde
church, a superstitious Church, a church of idolaters, a church of
antichirst, al which Calvin in efect saith and more, is as wicked or
worse then to sai he had no church at al, suposing the expresse
testimonies of holy scripture so much so often assuring unto it a
perpetuall sanctification of God and the everlasting assitaounce of
the holy Ghost. To saie he had al that time no church at all, is to saie
that all that time he was not head of his misticall body, he had not
al things subiected unto him, brefely that he had not the effect
and purchase of his most blessed incarnation, death, and
resurrection.^77THE CATHOLIC REACTION TO JEWEL 151
(^76) ‘Stapleton’s Bede is the first masterpiece of English patristic translation in the
Renaissance.’ Mark Vessey, ‘English Translations of the Latin Fathers’, in Irena Backus,
ed.,The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West, from the Carolingians to the
Maurists, Vol II. (Leiden, 2001), p. 809. Vessey devotes several pages to Stapleton’s work.
(^77) Thomas Stapleton, A Fortresse of Faither first planted amonge us englishmen,
and continued hitherto in the universall church of Christ (Antwerpe: Ihon Laet, 1565),
f. 40a.