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John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, was, after Archbishop Parker, the most important English churchman in the decisive Elizabethan era. His organizational work and voluminous doctrinal writings contributed largely to the stabilization of the Anglican Church in the early years of Elizabeth's reign. Among the most effective apologists in an age noted for them, an eminent humanist and patristic scholar, Bishop jewel brought the spirit of the new enlightenment to bear on the problem of authority which naturally arose after the Reformation's initial years of rupture and polemics. A thorough knowledge of Christian tradition and scriptural interpretation enabled Jewel to find a solution that avoided authoritarianism on the one hand and its opposite extreme of total dependence on individual inspiration on the other. The English Church of his time, strengthened by this solid basis for a continuing via media and by the brilliance of Bishop jewel's exposition of it, took cognizance of its own identity, and the Establishment emerged a reality. A later generation of Anglican apologists, faced with the challenge of Puritanism, also leaned heavily on the theories Jewel developed. This study of his work and character thus holds a key to the understanding of several of the most important ideas and institutions to evolve during these formative periods of modern civilization.
John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, was, after Archbishop Parker, the most important English churchman in the decisive Elizabethan era. His organizational work and voluminous doctrinal writings contributed largely to the stabilization of the Anglican Church in the early years of Elizabeth's reign. Among the most effective apologists in an age noted for them, an eminent humanist and patristic scholar, Bishop jewel brought the spirit of the new enlightenment to bear on the problem of authority which naturally arose after the Reformation's initial years of rupture and polemics. A thorough knowledge of Christian tradition and scriptural interpretation enabled Jewel to find a solution that avoided authoritarianism on the one hand and its opposite extreme of total dependence on individual inspiration on the other. The English Church of his time, strengthened by this solid basis for a continuing via media and by the brilliance of Bishop jewel's exposition of it, took cognizance of its own identity, and the Establishment emerged a reality. A later generation of Anglican apologists, faced with the challenge of Puritanism, also leaned heavily on the theories Jewel developed. This study of his work and character thus holds a key to the understanding of several of the most important ideas and institutions to evolve during these formative periods of modern civilization.
John Jewel (1522-1571) has long been regarded as one of the key figures in the shaping of the Anglican Church. A Marian exile, he returned to England upon the accession of Elizabeth I, and was appointed bishop of Salisbury in 1560 and wrote his famous Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae two years later. The most recent monographs on Jewel, now over forty years old, focus largely on his theology, casting him as deft scholar, adept humanist, precursor to Hooker, arbiter of Anglican identity and seminal mind in the formation of Anglicanism. Yet in light of modern research it is clear that much of this does not stand up to closer examination. In this work, Gary Jenkins argues that, far from serving as the constructor of a positive Anglican identity, Jewel's real contribution pertains to the genesis of its divided and schizophrenic nature. Drawing on a variety of sources and scholarship, he paints a picture not of a theologian and humanist, but an orator and rhetorician, who persistently breached the rules of logic and the canons of Renaissance humanism in an effort to claim polemical victory over his traditionalist opponents such as Thomas Harding. By taking such an iconoclastic approach to Jewel, this work not only offers a radical reinterpretation of the man, but of the Church he did so much to shape. It provides a vivid insight into the intent and ends of Jewel with respect to what he saw the Church of England under the Elizabethan settlement to be, as well as into the unintended consequences of his work. In so doing, it demonstrates how he used his Patristic sources, often uncritically and faultily, as foils against his theological interlocutors, and without the least intention of creating a coherent theological system.
Notions of which behaviours comprised sin, and what actions might lead to salvation, sat at the heart of Christian belief and practice in early modern England, but both of these vitally important concepts were fundamentally reconfigured by the reformation. Remarkably little work has been undertaken exploring the ways in which these essential ideas were transformed by the religious changes of the sixteenth-century. In the field of reformation studies, revisionist scholarship has underlined the vitality of late-medieval English Christianity and the degree to which people remained committed to the practices of the Catholic Church up to the eve of the reformation, including those dealing with the mortification of sin and the promise of salvation. Such popular commitment to late-medieval lay piety has in turn raised questions about how the reformation itself was able to take root. Whilst post-revisionist scholars have explored a wide range of religious beliefs and practices - such as death, providence, angels, and music - there has been a surprising lack of engagement with the two central religious preoccupations of the vast majority of people. To address this omission, this collection focusses upon the history and theology of sin and salvation in reformation and post-reformation England. Exploring their complex social and cultural constructions, it underlines how sin and salvation were not only great religious constants, but also constantly evolving in order to survive in the rapidly transforming religious landscape of the reformation. Drawing upon a range of disciplinary perspectives - historical, theological, literary, and material/art-historical - to both reveal and explain the complexity of the concepts of sin and salvation, the volume further illuminates a subject central to the nature and success of the Reformation itself. Divided into four sections, Part I explores reformers’ attempts to define and re-define the theological concepts of sin and salvation, while Part II looks at some of the ways in which sin and salvation were contested: through confessional conflict, polemic, poetry and martyrology. Part III focuses on the practical attempts of English divines to reform sin with respect to key religious practices, while Part IV explores the significance of sin and salvation in the lived experience of both clergy and laity. Evenly balancing contributions by established academics in the field with cutting-edge contributions from junior researchers, this collection breaks new ground, in what one historian of the period has referred to as the ‘social history of theology’.
This book is a detailed and comprehensive study of attitudes toward biblical authority and interpretation held from the beginnings of the Christian era to the present day. In clear and readable fashion, the authors examine the writings of early church fathers, the medieval exegetes, and the leaders of the Protestant Reformation to locate the source of, and refute, the position of inerrancy.
This volume brings together a diverse group of Reformation scholars to examine the life, work, and enduring significance of John Jewel, bishop of Salisbury from 1560 to 1571. A theologian and scholar who worked with early reformers in England such as Peter Martyr Vermigli, Martin Bucer, and Thomas Cranmer, Jewel had a long-lasting influence over religious culture and identity. The essays included in this book shed light on often-neglected aspects of Jewel’s work, as well as his standing in Elizabethan culture not only as a priest but as a leader whose work as a polemicist and apologist played an important role in establishing the authority and legitimacy of the Elizabethan Church of England. The contributors also place Jewel in the wider context of gender studies, material culture, and social history. With its inclusion of a short biography of Jewel’s early life and a complete list of his works published between 1560 and 1640, Defending the Faith is a fresh and robust look at an important Reformation figure who was recognized as a champion of the English Church, both by his enemies and by his fellow reformers. In addition to the editors, contributors to this volume are Andrew Atherstone, Ian Atherton, Paul Dominiak, Alice Ferron, Paul A. Hartog, Torrance Kirby, W. Bradford Littlejohn, Aislinn Muller, Joshua Rodda, and Lucy Wooding.