Vix credas in re fatua quantum homines, qui aliquid sapere videbantur,
insaniant. Ex illis, quos quidem tu noris, praeter Coxum nullus est ...
Rideo tamen, cum cogito, quibus illi et quam gravibus et solidis
rationibus defensuri sint suam cruculam.^69 In the event, though the
crucifix, intermittently, remained in the chapel royal, neither Sampson’s
nor Jewel’s fears were realized, and no consciences were constrained, nor
were any bishops deprived.
As for Cox, it appears that his attitude took an Erasmian bent, for a
month after the debate he wrote to his acquaintance George Cassander
of Cologne, then leader of the Erasmian party among the Catholics. Cox,
a bit disingenuous, wrote Cassander that there ‘is no open quarrel, but
yet there does not exist an entire agreement among us with respect to
setting up the crucifix in the churches, as had heretofore been the
practice’. He continues that some will countenance them if they are
neither worshiped nor venerated, but others assert that all images are
forbidden. He then sets forth that ‘no crucifix is now-a-days to be seen
in any of our churches’.
Cassander writes back at length, though under the assumption that
Cox is referring to a bare cross, without a corpusupon it. Cassander
takes Cox along a rather Carolingian trek, even citing the Liber Carolini
to the effect that having the form of a cross was a venerable thing.
Cassander valorizes the making of the sign of the cross, or blessing
oneself (which, ironically Calvin saw as an ancient and sound act^70 ), and
that the ancient church (Cassander cites Irenaeus and Gregory of Tours)
certainly used and venerated the cross. Cassander, oddly, seems to
embrace the use of an eight-pointed cross commonly associated with
Slavonic Churches. Cassander also asserts the assumption many
Protestants (Jewel among them) refused to recognize, that there is a
fundamental distinction between veneratioandadoratio, and Cassander
maintained this not by an overt declaration of the argument, but by
using the arguments employed by iconophiles of the Greek Church in the
eighth and ninth centuries, that veneration given to images is analogous
to that which a subject pays to the emperor when the image of the
emperor is venerated in coins and seals. This argument the iconophiles
took directly from St Basil of Caesarea, and Cassander reproduces the
same to Cox. It should be wondered how surprising this response was to
what Cox asked.^71
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE ELIZABETHAN CHURCH 69
(^69) ‘You would hardly believe to what degree men (archbishop Parker and bishop Cox),
who once seemed to be wise, are mad in regard to this silly matter.’ Jewel, Works, IV, p.
1228.
(^70) Calvin’s Ecclesiastical Advice, trans. Mary Beaty and Benjamin Farley (Louisville,
1991), p. 74. In a letter to Mme de Beze, and dated 1562.
(^71) For both letters see Zurich Letters, II, pp. 42–47.