Saturday, December 14, 2002

Whatever are the Anglican Books of Homilies?

Do they have authority?


In the Church of England in the sixteenth century sermons could not be preached by every incumbent (rector/vicar of a parish). A licence was needed, for which an M.A. degree (usually from Oxford or Cambridge) was a usual qualification. In The Book of Common Prayer no sermon is scheduled or required in the rubrics at either Morning or Evening Prayer, or with the Litany, but one is required in the Order for the Holy Communion.

When a sermon was not to be preached at Holy Communion, according to the Book of Common Prayer of 1552, "After the Crede, if there be no sermon, shal follow one of the homelies already set forth, or hereafter to be set forth by commune auchthoritie." The rubric remains substantially unchanged to the present day in the BCP of the Church of England. It was widely obeyed during the reigns of King Edward VI & Queen Elizabeth I (1559-1604). In fact in the parish churches of Shakespeare's England sermons were heard less frequently than the homilies. They were strongly defended against Puritan attacks in Elizabeth's reign. (The Puritans objected to a minister reading a sermon written by another person.)

The Book of Homilies, as the 1552 rubric states, is in fact two books bound together. The first book of twelve (12) written sermons was published in the reign of Edward VI in 1547, and the second book of twenty-one (21) in the reign of Elizabeth in 1563. Archbishop Cranmer is the major name behind the first book and Bishop Jewel behind the second.

The topics of the first book of homilies are: sin, salvation, justification, faith, good works and the Christian life of faithfulness and obedience.

The topics of the second book of homilies include: Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, Rogationtide, Marriage, Common Prayer, the Sacraments, Idolatry and godly living.

Often a homily was divided into two or three parts and read on consecutive Sundays.

It is surprising that the Homilies have not enriched the language with proverbial phrases as have the Bible and the Prayer Book. This may be partly because most of the homilies are in any case solidly biblical, and secondly perhaps because now that they are so little known we do not recognize every phrase they put into circulation. Shakespeare is said to have derived from them his ideas about the necessity for order and respect for authority.

There is the question as to the authority of the Book(s) of Homilies, which are dependent upon the authority of the formulary we know as The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (1562). The other two formularies of the Anglican Way are the BCP and the Ordinal.

In Article XI on Justification we are told that a full exposition of the doctrine is contained in the Homily of Justification, which is Homily III in the First Book. This strongly suggests that to know the doctrine of justification by faith of the Reformed Church of England we need to study this Homily. Thus it has a specific, doctrinal authority.

Article XXXV describes the second Book of Homilies and states that it contains "a godly and wholesome doctrine and necessary for these times". Then it refers to the First Book and of both Books says: "We judge them to be read in churches by the Ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people." This suggests that the Homilies teach and illustrate the worship, doctrine and discipline of the Church of England in a general way and in their essential contents (rather than their rhetorical style and internal organization) are to be received as the doctrine of the Church of England. The emphasis that they be read "diligently and distinctly" is notable for they are not in any way popular sermons.

If an Anglican Province sets aside the Articles of Religion then it would seem that the Homilies have no authority at all for they are dependent on the existence and authority of the Articles. However, in Elizabeth I's day they were required to be used by other personal forms of authority, especially that of the Queen herself.

It would appear that in 2003 the Book of Homilies is no longer in print (according to British Books in print).

It is surely time for a new edition.

And it is surely time for more people of the Anglican Way to become acquainted with them and their teaching.

I am tempted to read them "diligently and distinctly" into a micophone and thus enable them to be put on a couple of so CD's so that people can hear them as they are stuck in their cars in heavy traffic!

Perhaps I should put the homily for Christmas (from Book 2) on to our own little church website in the UK.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon Minister of Christ Church, Biddulph Moor, England & Vice-President and Emissary-at-Large of The Prayer Book Society of America

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