Defence of the True and Catholick Doctrine of the Sacrament^104 in which
the English archbishop clearly denied the real or corporeal presence of
Christ in the elements of the Eucharist, openly espoused a theology akin
to that professed in the Consensus Tigurinus, and made full use of the
Chrysostom text supplied by Martyr.^105 The arguments Jewel used about
the Incarnate Christ’s human body being in heaven became the central
point of a dialogue composed by Martyr against the Lutheran doctrine
of Ubiquitarianism. As we shall see, Jewel was happy to appropriate
Martyr’s arguments, however inapplicable they might be for the
questions he would address.
In the span of some four years following the death of Henry VIII,
England had moved from a strongly traditional Catholic theology, with
most of its prelates of the same opinion, to one in which the
traditionalists found themselves threatened and even deposed,^106 the
Reformers advanced and protected.^107 What the Reformers had only
hoped during Henry’s reign, had under Somerset and Northumberland
become a reality, as the first set of Edwardian injunctions, modeled on
those of Thomas Cromwell,^108 obligated parish priests to read from
Cranmer’s Book of Homilies.^109 This was followed by the allowance of
clerical marriage, the introduction of a Protestant liturgy and its
imposition as the only legal form of service in 1549, a new ordinal and
finally, a revised and far more Reformed Book of Common Prayer in
1552, complete with a quasi-Zwinglian Eucharistic service. Jewel’s
JEWEL TILL 1558 31
(^104) A Defence of the True and Catholick Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and
Blood of our Saviour Christ, with a confutation of sundry errors concerning the same
grounded and stablished upon God’s holy Word, and approved by the consent of the most
ancient Doctors of the Church. (London, 1550. Reprint, East Sussex, 1987).
(^105) The distinctions between the several Reformed theologians, notably Calvin and
Bullinger, and the theology of the Consensusare discussed in Paul Rorem, ‘Calvin and
Bullinger on the Lord’s Supper, Part I: The Impasse’, Lutheran Quarterly. II.2 Summer
(1988), pp. 155–84, and ‘Calvin and Bullinger on the Lord’s Supper, Part II: The
Agreement’,Lutheran QuarterlyII.2 (1988), pp. 357–90. Rorem’s discussion is pertinent
to the English situation, as shall be addressed below when treating Jewel’s own Eucharistic
thought as it relates to Peter Martyr Vermigli.
(^106) Gardiner of Winchester and Edmund Bonner of London were both deprived and
imprisoned, though Gardiner hardly was muzzled. Day of Chichester, Heath of Worcester,
Rugg of Norwich, Wakeman of Gloucester and Tunstall of Durham, resigned.
MacCulloch,Edward VI, p. 96; Loades, Politics and the Nation, p. 168.
(^107) Knox, called the Duke’s (Northumberland’s) Preacher, had been taken to task by the
Council of the North for his vehement preaching, only to find himself promoted to a larger
living in Newcastle. His homiletical skills and outspoken manner eventually brought him
to Northumberland’s attention, and gained him the royal chaplaincy. Reid, God’s
Trumpeter, pp. 74–84.
(^108) Cf. Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative, pp. 269–74.
(^109) Elton,Reform and Reformation, p. 339.