Lorenzo Valla, that this formed the basis of his defense of England, and
his assault on the traditionalists.^57 John Booty believed that Jewel
venerated the Fathers, but that the ultimate determinative factor in his
theological formation was his own private judgment over Scripture, a
moral certitude that he for his part had properly divined the will of the
Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures.^58 Finally, Peter White asserted that
Jewel left a legacy in these and in his other writings not at all Calvinistic
in its intent, in fact, not even Augustinian.^59 In other studies of both Jewel
and the English Reformation various interpretations have emphasized
Jewel’s precisian tendencies, his Erastianism, and his relative stance
(whether a hot Protestant or not) among the other Elizabethan bishops.
While each of these interpretations stressed a single element in Jewel
and gave some glimpse into his thought, none can assume a position so
crucial in Jewel’s thought that it relegates all other aspects of Jewel as
ancillary or subsidiary. The one that most closely apprehends this
singular description is Jewel’s explicit Erastianism. When using
Erastianism as a prism, Jewel’s lack of theologically precise doctrinal
formulations becomes not some complex via mediabetween Rome and
Geneva, but a means whereby a political necessity was wedded to an
ecclesiastical virtue. Jewel’s works do not present a body of theological
literature abundant with insight, but instead give a pedestrian reading of
scriptural texts, a prosaic use of the early Church, and a banal approach
to its theological topics. Jewel’s use of sources is often disingenuous, his
logic faulty and his theology in several areas flawed. What Jewel really
gives the student of the Reformation is an iconoclast in a prelate’s
vestments.
It is at this juncture – the institutional iconoclast – where two traits of
Jewel converge: his Erastianism and his canonical revisionism. In an era
when emergent nation states were leaving behind the old mores of feudal
monarchies, Jewel likewise cuts the cords of his monarch from any ties
with both the medieval past and the contemporary papacy.^60 Jewel had
imputed his queen with the authority of empire and its right of
jurisdiction over the Church. Yet he had not failed to notice that this very
imperium had been granted to the barbarian kingdoms by a papacy
wrongly conspiring against the Greeks in the making of Charles the
THE IDENTITY OF THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH 245
(^57) Levy, Tudor Historical Thought, pp. 106–10, 123.
(^58) Booty, Jewel as Apologist, pp. 141–49.
(^59) White,Predestination, policy and polemic, pp. 69–74.
(^60) Jewel would, however, use the feudal language of inheritance when seeking to justify
the claims of Elizabeth to her throne, both against Pius V’s Regnans in excelsis, and when
Harding would slight Jewel via the arguments of Knox. See Chapters III and IV respectively
on these.