Introduced and Edited by Ian Robinson
[The Prayer Book Society is delighted to announce its publication through its Preservation Press in the early Fall of 2006 of a new edition of The Homilies, comprising two books of sermons authorized and appointed to be read in English churches in the sixteenth century and since within “The Order for Holy Communion.” What follows is an introduction to these two books written by the Editor, the distinguished English scholar, Ian Robinson, and edited for this communication by Peter Toon.]
During the first century of her separation from Rome, three English books were of supreme importance to the Church of England. The first, in a sense embracing the other two, was the English Bible, which from 1539, still in the reign of Henry VIII, was given royal sanction, so that versions close to Tyndale’s could be freely read (if only chained in churches) throughout the land.
The second, the Book of Common Prayer, had to wait for the death of King Henry, who was far too reactionary a theologian to have countenanced it. These two books, in the form of the 1611 Bible, in direct descent from Tyndale, and the 1662 revision of the Prayer Book (with the Articles of Religion and the Ordinal usually bound in the one volume), are still in daily use.
The third member of the triad, the Homilies, appeared in 1547, and went through two major expansions as well as many minor revisions in numerous editions, between then and 1623, after which there were many reprints.
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer had much to do with all three books. The need for the Homilies must have been urgently felt by Cranmer’s generation, not excluding his anti-Reformation episcopal colleagues. The Prayer Book gave to the whole people (for Church attendance was at least in theory compulsory) in their own language, the liturgy of the Church, and forms of service to cover the major events of life, from baptism, by way of marriage, to burial. But a reliable and standard exposition of the Christian way, to be heard by all the people, was thought so urgently necessary that it preceded the first Prayer Book by two years.
Sermons to be read
The Homilies differ from both earlier and later collections in their effort at complete coverage of essential Christian doctrine and life, and in their authority. In the near-century before the Civil War they were “appointed to be read in churches.” By Royal Injunction of July 1547, one of the Homilies was to be read every Sunday. Their authority is stated in Article XXXV as “a godly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for these times.” They are therefore “to be read in Churches by the Ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people.” The 1801 edition of The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America reaffirmed the Article “so far as it declares the Books of Homilies to be an explication of Christian doctrine and instructive to piety and morals”, though it discontinued the instruction that they be read in churches, and “all references to the constitution and laws of England are considered as inapplicable.” In modern times it is unusual to hear one of the Homilies read in place of a sermon, but wherever the Anglican Way has gone and the Articles have been received as a Formulary in the new Province, the two Book of Homilies have naturally been included. So, for example, they are now part of the Standards of Faith of Anglican Churches in West and East Africa, from Nigeria to Uganda.
A move had been made in 1542, during the lifetime of King Henry VIII, to issue an authorized volume of homilies, but nothing came of it, perhaps because of the King’s rooted hostility to the doctrines of the Reformation. Under the new king Edward VI, a great need was still felt for the Christian way to be expounded to the people. The parish priests could not always be relied upon to do so, and those who were capable were not all in line with the reformed doctrines. Not all parish priests in the reigns of the protestant Tudors were licensed to preach. Usually a university degree, which in those days meant Oxford or Cambridge, was required. Where original preaching was not possible, the Homilies were to be used, according to the rubric still found in the Communion service of the Book of Common Prayer: Then shall follow the Sermon, or one of the Homilies already set forth, or hereafter to be set forth, by authority. The likelihood must be that Shakespeare heard a part of one the Homilies much more often than he heard a sermon.
Two Books
The first Book of Homilies was published only six months after the death of Henry VIII, in the summer of 1547, which must mean that plans if not texts had already been made before Henry’s death. No documentary evidence is known to survive of the details of compilation and editing, but it is probable that Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was the editor, as well as himself the author of three of the most theological Homilies (of Salvation, Faith and Good Works).The Homily on Charity is known to be by Bishop Bonner, one of the principal ecclesiastical opponents of Cranmer.
The aim of the first Book of Homilies was surely to present, as far as practicable, agreed Christian doctrine, and if an author could be included from the anti-Reformation camp, it was thereby demonstrated that about something as important as the understanding of Christian love there was no difference between the evangelicals, as they were known, and their conservative opponents. During the Roman reaction under Mary I all copies of the Homilies were ordered to be destroyed, but the survival of so many shows that the destruction was far from complete.
The second Book, said to have been supervised by John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, first appeared in 1562, fulfilling a promise made at the end of the first Book to treat subjects it did not cover. The two volumes went on being printed separately for many years. In 1570, the year after the Northern Rising, “the Homily against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion” appeared separately and in 1571 was added to the second Book. From 1582, so as to facilitate binding in one volume, the two Books were sometimes printed uniformly, and in 1623, the most recent edition to be issued on authority, they were at last published as one volume.
The urgency behind the Homilies is not hard to understand. It is certainly untrue that there was no preaching in the Middle Ages, but equally, a new emphasis on preaching came in with the Reformation. The Bible is the Word of God, but it is necessary to expound the Bible, to explain how it can save. The Book of Common Prayer is itself a kind of résumé of the Bible and in fact includes it, except for some of the Apocrypha, by way of the lections. The Homilies make a fitting complement to the Book of Common Prayer in their expounding of Biblical doctrine, and in their range. They have a solid theological core, and explain salvation through grace by faith in language comprehensible to the ordinary worshipper but without oversimplification; there is subtlety as well as clarity in the reconciliation of Paul and James. And they inherit from the Middle Ages a determination to impart moral doctrine, moral in the widest sense of how to walk in the Christian way; and they go into practical detail. The Homilies are “evangelical” in their theology but very characteristic of the Church of England of the sixteenth century in a catholic range of reference.
The Text
The text for this new edition is not edited from original editions but revised from that of John Griffiths, Oxford, 1859. Though it is a long time since Griffiths did his work, his excellent edition is still unlikely to be superseded, and he established his text with such immense care that in the present edition only two typographical errors have been corrected. The present edition follows Griffiths in using modern spelling but reproducing proper names in their sixteenth-century forms.
[The new edition has been printed in England as a hardback. It is xviii+436 pp large royal 8vo (= approx. in inches 6 x 9) and is well bound in green buckram. It will be available in early September 2006 for $45.00 per copy, plus $5.00 postage, total $50.00. Supply is limited. Think of buying one as a Christmas present for a Minister, a college or seminary student since it is a primary text for several disciplines – including English history, the origins of modern English prose, and Anglican theology. Please send a check to the Prayer Book Society in Philadelphia anytime to place an order ( P.O. Box 35220, Philadlephia PA. 19128-0220) ; or buy it on line from mid-September at www.anglicanmarketplace.com when it is actually in stock and listed there. Libraries and bookshops send orders to the P.O. Box, and if in difficulties call 1-800-727-1928. In the UK and outside North America visit www.edgewaysbooks.com to order]
The Rev’d Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)
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