used of honor due to parents.^24 In fact the second Nicaean Council (787)
had linked
with
to guard against any confusion of
terms. Up to and including Jewel’s and Harding’s confrontation, the
debate over images in the English Church had made no use of the central
point on which the debate over images had turned in the eighth and
ninth centuries, the Incarnation. At this very point Nicholas Sander took
up the question with Jewel.
Sander reproduced segments from both Harding’s and Jewel’s works
in treating the question of images, and went directly to the question of
whether Catholic images were by definition idols, showing that Jewel’s
identification of the two takes liberties with what the Fathers had said.
He quotes Jewel: ‘M Harding douteth not to derive the first invention of
his Images from God his selfe (and afterward) but learned and wise men
thinke, that the invention hereof came first from the Heathens and
Infidels, that knew not God.’ Jewel quoted St Athanasius to bolster his
point, to which Sander replied that Jewel had twisted the saint’s words,
for Athanasius had written that all idols, not all images, were the
invention of the heathen. He then pressed his point:
Is every image an idol? If you thinke so, then sith the Son of God is
the Image of God, and the figure of his Fathers substance, the Sonne
of God is with you an Idol. Or is every idol, an image? then the
pictures of those who are made with Dogs faces, are Images, and
consequently there are such men in dede. For every Image, if it be
properly an Image, is the likenes of some truth. Otherwise it is an
Idol, and no Image, as I shewed before out of Origen and
Theodorete. But know you not the difference betwene an Idol and
an Image? Then you are very simple, in good faith, and to(o) meanly
learned, or if you do know the difference (because doutles you are
no sote) why then turn the greek word
Idolorum, by this
english word Images? but onlely because you must maintein your
cause by falshod? But let us come to speak of the state of the new
testament.^25Sander also took up the question of the relation between images of
Christ and the images of kings and princes. None would deny that the
smashing of the image of the king is nothing less than treason; what then
of smashing the image of Christ? Is not Christ in his manhood worthy at
least of the honor given to kings? If it is correct to break the image of
Christ, is it not also warranted to break the image of the king and
magistrate?^26 Sander here introduced, but did not pursue, the link
between proper reverence of God as a prerequisite for proper obedience
128 JOHN JEWEL AND THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH
́ ́
(^24) Calvin,Institutes, I.xi–xii. Cf. McNeil ed., pp. 99–120.
(^25) Nicholas Sander, A Treatise of the Images of Christ; and his saints(Louvain, John
Fowler, 1567), ff. 76a, 77b–78a. Italics Sander’s.
(^26) Ibid., ff. 109b–11a.