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A particular Reformed piety: John Knox and the posture at communion1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2014

Iain R. Torrance
Iain R. Torrance*
Affiliation:
University Secretary's Office, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3FX, UKirt@abdn.ac.uk
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Abstract

2014 is the quincentenary of the birth of John Knox and the article is part of an attempt to contextualise him and assess his impact. In the autumn of 1552 Knox preached a ferocious sermon at Windsor in the presence of the young King Edward VI. The sermon threatened to derail the careful compromise of the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI and provoked a sharp reply from Archbishop Thomas Cranmer to the Privy Council. The so-called Black Rubric (arguably produced by Cranmer) which clarified the intention of the posture of the recipient at communion was added to the Second Prayer Book. Though Cranmer's withering response might have been taken to have demolished Knox's peculiar insistence that the Reformed communion should mirror the posture of the disciples at the Last Supper, the issue reappeared a generation later when James VI and I attempted to require recipients to kneel to receive communion in the Articles of Perth of 1618. The Knox–Cranmer dispute had a rerun in the conflicting pamphlets of David Calderwood and John Forbes of Corse. In theological terms, John Forbes has the better arguments, but by that stage aspects of a style and tone of Scottish worship had become customary and prevail to this day. It is those aspects of table fellowship which form Knox's continuing legacy.

Keywords

communionArticles of PerthDavid CalderwoodJames VIJohn Forbes of CorseJohn KnoxkneelingPrayer Book
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , November 2014 , pp. 400 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2014 

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Footnotes

1

I am grateful to Jane Dawson, Bryan Spinks and Diarmaid MacCulloch for their helpful comments and advice.

References

2 c.1500–22 Jan. 1552.

3 c.1495–9 Feb. 1555. Hooper became a champion of Swiss Calvinism in England. He became a chaplain to the Protector Somerset.

4 1504–22 Aug. 1553.

5 Hooper considered vestments to be vestiges of Judaism and Roman Catholicism.

6 See Lorimer, Peter, John Knox and the Church of England (London, 1875), part I, p. 101Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., p. 98. The sermon is not preserved, but it is reported by Utenhovius in a letter to Henry Bullinger, 12 Oct. 1552. For this see Lorimer, John Knox, p. 98.

8 Northumberland subsequently made the mistake of attempting to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne after the death of Edward VI. He was executed on 22 Aug. 1553.

9 Lorimer, John Knox, p. 104.

10 Ibid.

11 This is how Diarmaid MacCulloch takes it in his biography of Cranmer Thomas Cranmer: A Life (Yale, CT: Yale University Press, 1997).

12 See Lorimer, John Knox, part II, section 1, pp 251–65.

13 Ibid., p. 261; emphasis added.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid., p. 262.

18 Ibid., p. 263.

19 See Lorimer, John Knox, part II, section 2, pp. 267–75.

20 Ibid., p. 271.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid., p. 273; emphasis added.

24 Ibid., pp. 273–4.

25 Ibid., p. 274.

26 There is a view that, had Edward lived, Knox might well have become Archbishop of Canterbury.

27 It formed the basis of the revision under Elizabeth in 1558.

28 Then a royal chaplain and Dean of Gloucester.

29 The vote was 86:41.

30 That is, the Elizabethan revival and revision of the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI.

31 He was Laird of Corse and so is known as John Forbes of Corse.

32 Andrew Melville 1545–1622 was a leading figure in the second generation of Scottish reformers. He was successively principal of the University of Glasgow, where he reformed the curriculum, and principal of St Mary's College, St Andrews. He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1578 and reorganised the church on Presbyterian principles. A scourge of King James, whom he addressed as ‘God's silly vassal’, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London and ended his life teaching at the University of Sedan in France.

33 Aberdeen: Edward Raban, 1629.

34 Aberdeen: Edward Raban, 1638.

35 David Calderwood 1575–1650 was an opponent of episcopacy in Scotland. Having fallen out with King James, he was banished to the Netherlands, where he published his major work, Altare Damascenum. After his return to Scotland, he was one of those responsible for drawing up The Directory for Public Worship. He was the author of The Historie of the Kirk of Scotland.

36 Published in Amsterdam in 1645 by Ludovicus Elzevirius.

37 He was a Commissioner to the Westminster Assembly from the Church of Scotland.

38 A ‘Duply’ (plural Duplyes) is the Scots word for a defender's rejoinder to a pursuer's reply.

39 1554–1631. He was minister of St Giles and preached classic sermons on the Lord's Supper in the Church of Scotland.

40 Calderwood, The Perth Assembly (1619), p. 46.

41 Ibid., p. 47.

42 Ibid., p. 51.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid., pp. 96–101.

46 Ibid., p. 96.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid., p. 97.

51 Ibid., p. 98.

52 See Selwayn, E. G., The First Book of the Irenicon of John Forbes (Cambridge: CUP, 1923), p. 66Google Scholar.

53 Ibid., p. 76.

54 Ibid., p. 77.

55 Ibid., p. 79.

56 Ibid., p. 80.

57 Ibid., p. 81.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid., p. 80.

60 Ibid., p. 81.

61 Ibid., p. 82.

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid., pp. 112–13.

64 Ibid., p. 113.

65 From the Duplyes of 1638.

66 Ibid., p. 128.

67 Ibid., p. 129.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid.

70 Ibid., p. 130.

71 Ibid.

72 Ibid.

73 Ibid., p. 131.

74 Ibid., p. 132.

75 Ibid., p. 133, and Calvin, Letter 361.

76 Duplyes, p. 134. John Forbes was a deeply learned scholar of the early church and his argument is studded with references to Cyprian, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil and others.