Judaizing Catholics

In 1598 English Protestant John Rainolds (Reynolds) published a dialogue he had engaged in with Catholic John Hart. One line of argument linked the transition from Israel’s Old Covenant ceremonies and worship with a challenge to Roman “Judaizing.” It was a popular argument, going back at least to passages in Calvin (Necessity of Reforming the Church; Reply to Sadoleto) and repeated in many writers of the sixteenth century. I think this style of argument and protest was far more central to the Reformation than standard accounts of the Reformation have acknowledged and, while I don’t endorse every detail of Rainolds’ argument, it seems that this line of argument gets to the heart of why the Reformation was necessary.

Rainolds notes that the coming of Christ dismantled the whole system of antique worship: “Whereas Christians, of the other side, neither have those altars, or offerings made thereon to join with their spiritual sacrifice of praise, and they may sing the songs of the Lord in all places. No lande is strange: no ground unholy. Every coast is Jewry, and every town Jerusalem, and every house Zion, and every faithful company, yea every faithful body a temple to serve God in. The Christian worship then doth differ even in prayers from that of the Jews, both in respect of the temple, which they had a regard to: and of the ceremonies of the law, which they were bound therewith to keep. Wherefore, as the ministry of the new testament, that is, of them who taught the Gospel, came after the ministry of Priests in the old, and yet both old and new are the Lords testament: so might and did the worship of God amongst Christians in spirit & truth come after the worship of God amongst the Jews, though yet they both did worship God spiritually. For the Jews before did worship in the temple with the ceremonies of the law: as when the Priest was burning incense at the altar in the inner parte thereof, the multitude of the people were praying in the outer. And the Christians after did pray without incense in any place, the people and Pastor all together: as the Apostles with the disciples, and (according to their instruction) the primitive Churches practice show.”

Rainolds, however, expected that the radical change of worship would not be as clear to his Catholic interlocutor since “your Popish worship is so like the Jewish, both for the temple, and the ceremonies, that you may justly think their worship was in spirit and truth as much as yours.”

He elaborated by drawing out extensive parallels between Jewish and Catholic liturgy:

“For as the Priest with them was severed from the people by the division of the sanctuary and court of the temple: so with you, by the chancel and body of the church. As with them he burned incense at the altar: so with you he doth. As with them he was clad in an Ephod, a miter, a broidered coate, a girdle, a breastplate, and a robe, and they who served him were in their linnen coates too: so with you he must have an amice, an albe, a girdle, a fanel, a chisible, and a stole, and they who are about him have surplesses, yea, copes also. Their Priests had a laver whereat they must wash before they sacrificed: so have yours. Your vail between the choir and the altar in lent, resembleth theirs, that severed the holy place from the most holy. Your Pyx with the sacrament and their arke with the mercy seat: your phylactery with Saints relics, and their pot with Manna: your monstrancy with the host, and their table with the show-bread: your holy oile of balm, and theirs of myrrhe with spices: their purifying water made of the ashes of an heifer, and yours of other ashes with water, wine, and salt: their fyer sent from heaven, and yours fetcht thence by art: their rod of Aaron, and your cross of Christ.”

In some respects, Catholic worship is even more complex than Jewish: “finally your candles, or tapers, or torches, and their candlestick with lampes, do match one another in proportion of rites: nay, you surpass them in your candles. For theirs were lighted in the night: yours, in the day too. Theirs, in the temple only: yours, abroad also. Theirs, before the Lord: yours, before images. Theirs, in one manner: yours, with great variety. Theirs, in small number: yours, at times, and places, as many as the sand of the sea.”

Rainolds objected to Catholic consecration of objects and places: “Your consecrating of Bishops, of Churches, of altars, of patents, of chalices, and other instrumentes of your Priesthood, by anointing them, according to the order of Aaron and the tabernacle. Your shaving, as of Levites: your imagery, as from Solomon: your hallowing of men, belles, ashes, boughes, bread, the paschal Lamb, the paschal taper, agnus-deis (and what not?) with exorcised water: wherewith almost all things are purged by your law, as by theirs with blood.”

The Mass, understood (by Rainolds) as a repeated sacrifice of Christ, was a central example of this reversion to the old order: “your daily sacrifice of the Mass, though inferiour to theirs in that it is no burnt offering, wherein yet I marvel you came no nearer them, for as they kept fire on the altar always, so do you require it, and what should you have fire upon your altar as they had, unless you burne as they did? but your daily sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated in such Levitical sort, as if you contended to set forth a Jewish worship more lively then the Levitical Priests could. In attire like them, in mysteries above them, in orders more exquisite, in cauteles more diligent, in furniture abundantly: in lifting up the whole host, and not (as they) a part of it, in ringing of the sacring bell to countervail their trumpets: in washing often, in blessing and crossing, in censing often, in soft speech and whispering, in kissing of the amice, kissing of the fanel, kissing of the stole, kissing of the altar, kissing of the book, kissing of the Priests hand, and kissing of the Pax: in smiting and knocking, in gesturing by rule and measure, in bowing and ducking, in spacing forward, backward, and turning round about, and traversing of the ground, beside the sweete music of Organs, and so forth, where it may be had, as in the temple it might.”

Hart is convinced, Rainolds knows, that “this kind of service in your Church is Christian” but “in very truth it is more than Jewish.” Catholics like the Jews cannot see, since a veil lies over their heart, and Rainolds concludes this section of the dialogue with a prayer: “The Lord take away this vail from your heart, if it be his good pleasure: that you may see at length, what it is to worship him in spirit and truth, and when you see it, do it.”