John Jewel

Jewel was one of the principal architects of the intellectual case for the Elizabethan church settlement. A protégé of Peter Martyr Vermigli and an exile under Mary, he returned to England in 1559 and was consecrated Bishop of Salisbury the following year. His Apology of the Church of England (1562) — written in Latin for a European audience before being translated into English — argued that the reformed English church was not a novelty but a return to the faith and practice of the early church, purified of medieval accretion. The argument is historical as much as theological: Jewel read the Fathers carefully and quoted them extensively, holding antiquity as the standard against which contemporary Roman claims should be measured. He remains essential reading for understanding how the early Anglican tradition understood its own identity.