troubleth with number. His blowes come thicke, but his weapons
lacke edge. some in olde time likened Logique to the hand closed
toegehter, Rhetorique to the hand stretched abrode. Thereof it may
be conceived, how much we feare this Rhetorician. wel may he
swepe duste from of our coates with flap of hand: he cannot hurte
our boanes with stroke of fiste. The onset of such an enemie cannot
fray us, the chasing of him may put us to some labour.^11A work that sought to answer, part-by-part and line-by-line, Jewel’s
1565 response to Harding would necessarily be too long, and thus it was
decided that each of the Catholic contestants would answer Jewel ‘as
zeal pricked forward’.
The Recusants and Jewel’s overextended rhetoric
When Henry Cole first responded to Jewel that the debate he proposed
must proceed dialecticeand that arguments not be based upon words
and definitions, but upon logic and dialectic, he set the tone for the
whole of the Catholic answer to Jewel. The Catholic polemicists
certainly noted that the truth of theology was not based merely on
words, that is, whether the truth of Christ’s corporeal, substantial,
physical presence depended on the Fathers using these exact words in so
describing it, likewise whether the universal jurisdiction of the bishop of
Rome depended on these specific words for its reality. And while how
they approached Jewel extended far beyond the content of terms, the
Catholics also argued that Jewel’s challenges hardly presented the matter
as it should have been, for many things that are licitly done may have no
testimony in the early Church. In this they were thinking of communion
under one kind, though they were still more than happy to answer Jewel
on this item given the original terms of the Challenge Sermon. They
argued further that how Jewel sought to use the testimony of the ancient
Church would also leave no room for his own theological assertions. In
answering Jewel that Christ spoke not one word about the Mass,
Thomas Stapleton noted that Christ never uttered a word about
sacraments or mysterium when instituting the Eucharist either. Even
more pertinent, Stapleton maintained, if Jewel wished to quibble about
the term sacrifice, he would not find it in the New Testament, for it had
been given to the Church by the holy Fathers, for from none of the
Evangelists could it be learned that Christ’s death on the cross was a
sacrifice, though of them it is learned that Christ was so sacrificed.^12
THE CATHOLIC REACTION TO JEWEL 123
(^11) Thomas Harding, A Rejoindre to M. Iewels Replie(Louvain: John Fowler, 1566), in
the ‘Addres to Reader’.
(^12) Thomas Stapleton, A return of Untruthes upon M. Iewelles Replie(Louvain, John