 | Studies in bibliography |  |
1. Andrewes's Lost Whit-Sunday Sermon
On 23 May 1602, when Lancelot Andrewes preached at Westminster on
John 16:7, John Manningham was in the audience. This Whit-Sunday sermon
who receive considerable attention in the Diary, John Spenser, rector of St.
Sepulchre's, Newgate, and John King, one of the Queen's chaplains and rector
of St. Andrew, Holborn. Beginning in the 1580s, Andrewes had delivered
hundreds of sermons, many at court, and hundreds of lectures.[2] In mid-1602,
he was, as Manningham noted, Dean of Westminster, someone who had
preached before the Queen on many occasions and who would deliver her
funeral sermon less than a year later.[3] Andrewes's fortunes, which were to soar
under King James, were already on the rise, so it is not surprising that Manningham
took extensive notes—about 1,500 words covering six pages in his
Diary (fols. 21b-24)—on a Pentecost sermon delivered by a highly regarded
preacher.
Contemporary listeners and modern scholars have long acknowledged
that Andrewes quotes, paraphrases, and alludes to his own sermons. The
contemporary court gossip John Chamberlain recognized the connection between
Andrewes's 1621 Easter sermon and the one he preached the previous
year,[4]
and modern scholars refer to the echoes and repetitions that occur between
canonical texts in XCVI Sermons (1629), recollections that are almost
certainly based on the preacher's direct examination of a manuscript while
preparing a new one.[5]
However, by neglecting to look beyond XCVI Sermons—that
is, by consistently overlooking manuscripts and posthumously
printed texts attributed to Andrewes—scholars have underestimated the extent
to which he echoes his own writing and failed to recognize some of the
uses of this evidence when dealing with important textual questions, including
those of authenticity or authorship. Attributed to Andrewes on the title
and Orphan Lectures (1657) contains over one hundred lectures on
every verse in Genesis 1-4 and a few other scriptural passages, all delivered
at St. Paul's and St. Giles from 1590 to 1592 and 1598 to 1600. A number of
the Orphan Lectures include quotations and paraphrases from other pieces
in the volume, material that is sometimes echoed or repeated from a lecture
delivered only a few days earlier.[6] Similarly in XCVI Sermons, the Orphan
Lectures, and attributed lectures and sermons whose manuscripts are located
in the Emmanuel College Library and Lambeth Palace Library—texts separated
by a few years or even a full decade—clear echoes and repetitions appear
in Andrewes's discussions of the "congruities" between a church and a
sheep-fold, the journey of the Magi, the pain expressed in Lamentations 1:12,
and the debate of the Four Daughters of God in Psalm 85:10-11.[7] As these
examples illustrate, it would not be difficult to make a case for the authenticity
of the various manuscripts and Orphan Lectures by developing an argument
based on a suitably large number of parallels between the canonical
XCVI Sermons and texts that are candidates for being accepted as authentic.
Because Andrewes's practice of self-echoing is somewhat more extensive than
previously thought, there are more opportunities to use this evidence to resolve
questions of authorship or to determine the reliability of notes taken
on a sermon.
Although no printed version of Andrewes's 1602 Whit-Sunday sermon
exists for purposes of comparison with Manningham's notes, one can begin to
assess his account by examining various ideas, images, and words in a later
Whit-Sunday sermon Andrewes preached, specifically one before King James
at Windsor on 12 May 1611 that subsequently was printed in XCVI Sermons.
Doing so in turn requires some sense of what that printed form represents.
Contemporary evidence suggests a close similarity between the texts as they
appeared in Andrewes's manuscripts, spoken words, and printed works. In
the Epistle Dedicatorie to XCVI Sermons, editors William Laud and John
all of Andrewes's works that were complete but also that the full sermon
notes which they are publishing are nearly identical to what his congregation
actually heard:
Your Majesty gave us a strict charge, that we should overlooke the Papers (as well
Sermons as other Tractates) of that Reverend and Worthie Prelate, and print all that
we found perfect. There came to our hands a world of Sermon notes, but these came
perfect. . . . as the Sermons were preached, so are they published.[8]
John Sparrow's general description of preaching in Stuart England indicates
that Andrewes's habits of composing, memorizing, and preaching were by no
means unusual. The "approved method of preaching" in the first half of the
seventeenth century "was to speak a sermon with as little dependence on
manuscript as possible. Yet a sermon was not given ex tempore: the preacher
when he entered the pulpit would have it in his head, and he might have
copied it out in full."[9]
In fact, so conscientious was Andrewes about creating
a finished, polished manuscript that he could follow when speaking from the
pulpit that on four occasions when he was too ill to preach, the texts were
already fully prepared and, after his death, given to the printer so they could
appear in XCVI Sermons in a final form identical to that of the other sermons
in the volume.[10]
Manuscript evidence from Andrewes's 1620 Easter sermon
further demonstrates that what appeared in print in the 1629 collection
is nearly identical to the manuscripts from which he preached and, as Andrewes's
preeminent modern editor has explained and as I have argued elsewhere,
to the words he spoke from the pulpit.[11]
In the case of the 1611 WhitSunday
sermon, no apparent textual irregularities or unusual historical cirsumstances
cast doubt on the conclusion that the posthumously printed text
in XCVI Sermons accurately reflects what he preached and thus can serve as
a reliable basis for comparison with his sermon nine years earlier.
Themes and wording in the published Whit-Sunday sermon of 1611 indicate
that Andrewes was there revisiting the sermon Manningham heard in
1602. In 1611, Andrewes chooses an appropriate passage for the day, John 16:7,
in which Christ calms his disciples by explaining that he departs so a "Comforter"
may come, the same passage Manningham heard him explicate on 23
to Manningham's notes, Andrewes states:
These words have reference to the feast which is celebrated this day: whereupon St.
Augustine said, In verbo fuit promissio missionis, et in festo missio promissionis.
21b)
When the 1611 sermon was printed in 1629, the text presents the same point
in similar words:
So that, between this Text and this Feast, there is that mutuall reference and reciprocation,
that is, between promissio missionis, and missio promissionis.[12]
Referring to 2 Timothy 4:10 in both sermons, Andrewes shows the relationship
between Demas's defection from Paul and Christ's leaving his disciples:
Manningham (1602): as Paule complayneth, . . . that Demas had forsaken him, would
it not greive the disciples to [be] for saken by such a frend as Christ had bin unto
them. . . . fol. 21b)
Andrewes (1611): Not without some griefe, doth the Apostle recount, that even Demas
was fallen of, and had forsaken Him. 2. And, if any friend; how much more, of such a
friend, as CHRIST was to them?
That Christ makes the effort to explain his departure calls for praise in both
sermons:
Manningham (1602): Christ rendred a reason of his departure (though it be not
requisit alwayes that governors should render a reason to their subjectes of all their
commaundments. . . .) (fol. 22)
Andrewes (1611): [Christ] even condescends to render them (though farr his inferiours)
a reason of His going and comming; which (sure) He was no way bound to doe.
In 1602, Andrewes uses a lengthy observation to demonstrate the necessity
for Christ's departure, an argument that he echoes in 1611:
Manningham (1602): 1. Yf the Holy Ghost should have come downe while Christ was
upon the earth, whatsoever the Holy Ghost should have done in his person would
have bin ascribed to Christ. 2. He would have appeared to have bin sent from the
Father alone. And soe it would not have bin so apparant that he proceeded from the
Father and the Sonne bothe. 3. Expedient it was that Christ should depart from them,
howe good soever his presence was unto them. Wee knowe that bread is the strength
of mans hart, yet sometymes it may be expedient to fast: our bloud is the treasury of
our lyfe, yet sometymes it is expedient to loose it; our eyesight is deare and precious
unto us, yet sometymes it is expedient to sitt in a darke roome. . . . It is expedient that
children which growe fond of their parentes should be weaned.
Andrewes (1611): if CHRIST had still remained and not gone His way, they [signs]
would not well have been distinguished, and great odds have been ascribed to
CHRIST. . . . For, He not going to send Him, but staying still heer, the sending of
the Spirit would have been ascribed to the Father alone, as His sole act. This would
have been the most: that the Father, for His sake, had sent Him; but he, as GOD,
be conceived: Quem mittet Pater, et quem mittam a Patre; that with the Father, He
sends Him, equally, and we alike beholden to them both.
. . . as it is expedient, CHRIST withdraw Himselfe from them. And is there any vobis,
can any man be in that case, it should be good for CHRIST to depart from him? It
seemeth so. We see oftentime, the case so standeth, even in regard of this life, that,
from some, it is good their meate be taken, and yet is meat the stay of their life; that,
from some, it is good their bloud be taken, yet bloud is nature's treasure, and that
holdeth us in life; that, from some, light be taken, in some disease of the eyes, yet is
light the comfort of this life.
. . . Even that case, that maketh the mother many times withdraw her selfe, from her
yong child, whom (yet) she loveth full tenderly, when the child groweth foolishly
fond of her.
Near the end of the Diary's entry on this sermon, Andrewes uses striking
imagery to present the application of his various points:
Manningham (1602): The Holy Ghost is not given to all in the same measure, nor the
same manner. When Christ breathed upon his disciples they received the Holy Ghost;
and, when the Holy Ghost came like fyrey tongues, they were filled with him: breath
was warme, but fyre is hotter: there was heate in both but not equally. Elias prayed
that the Spirit of [Elijah] might be doubled upon him.
Andrewes (1611): And, because his [the Holy Ghost's] uses be many, his types are so.
Water sometimes, sometimes fire: One while winde, one while ointment: and according
to our severall wants, we send to him, for fire to warme; for winde, to coole;
for water, to clense us; for oyle, to supple us.
These passages demonstrate Andrewes's ability to rework images and phrases
to suit different emphases, the 1602 sermon focusing on the recipients of the
Holy Ghost's power and how that power reveals itself, the 1611 sermon on
the types or manifestations of the Holy Ghost. Quoted at length because they
contain echoes and repetitions that are clear and numerous, these passages
constitute some of the most compelling evidence that I have located from
the point where Manningham's and Andrewes's lives intersect. As is the case
with all of the pairs of quotations I have presented, and as I will now argue
is typical of the Diary's notes from various kinds of sources, the similarities
between these passages about the Holy Ghost illustrate Manningham's skill
at taking notes—in this case, while the preacher speaks—probably with some
compression and summarizing. I will now turn to other evidence about his
habits of transcription to assess further the nature of Manningham's notes on
the 1602 Whit-Sunday sermon.
Most of Andrewes's extant sermons were published as XCVI Sermons (1629); many of
his lectures were published in such volumes as A Patterne of Catechisticall Doctrine (1630),
The Morall Law Expounded (1642), and ΑΠΟΣΠΑΣΜΑΤΙΑ SACRA; Or, A Collection of
Posthumous and Orphan Lectures: Delivered at St. Pauls and St. Giles His Church (1657).
See Chamberlain's letter to Sir Dudley Carleton of 18 April 1621, in which he casually
remarks that the recent Easter sermon "is excellently commended (beeing upon the remainder
of his text the last yeare)" (The Letters of John Chamberlain, ed. Norman Egbert
McClure [Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1939], 2:362).
In his edition of Lancelot Andrewes: Sermons (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1967), G. M.
Story comments on Andrewes's referring "to his earlier treatment of a subject" and locates
in the 1622 Christmas sermon "a revision and expansion of a paragraph" from the previous
year's Christmas sermon, "which he must have had before him" (xlvi). See also Story, "The
Text of Lancelot Andrewes's Sermons," in Editing Seventeenth Century Prose, ed. D. I. B.
Smith (Toronto: Hakkert, 1972), 13-15. Nicholas Lossky, in Lancelot Andrewes, the Preacher
(1555-1626): The Origins of the Mystic Theology of the Church of England, trans. Andrew
Louth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), observes that Andrewes's Good Friday sermons
contain "a very large number of repetitions—sometimes word for word—from one sermon
to another" (161 n. 39). Since Lossky has not consulted the various manuscripts and posthumous
texts attributed to Andrewes, and since he appears to overlook the kind of evidence
that Story presents, my findings in the canonical and attributed works qualify his claim that
the practice of self-echoing is "otherwise very infrequent in Andrewes" (161 n. 39).
In lectures delivered at St. Paul's on 16 October and 19 October 1591, for example,
Andrewes clearly echoes his discussion of Adam's need for a meet help (Orphan Lectures 210
and 215), the original tongue in Eden (209 and 213), and Adam's naming of the animals
(209-220 and 215).
Andrewes discusses the church and sheep-fold in a sermon on 21 February 1591 (misdated
24 February; XCVI Sermons, 280) and a lecture probably delivered in 1598-1600
(Orphan Lectures, 644-645); the journey of the Magi in sermons on 25 December 1620 (XCVI
Sermons, 137) and 25 December 1622 (XCVI Sermons, 143-144); Lamentations 1:12 in a
lecture probably delivered in 1598-1600 (Orphan Lectures, 639-640) and a sermon on 6
April 1604 (XCVI Sermons, 349-350); and the Four Daughters of God in undated Sermon 2
in Cambridge University's Emmanuel College Library MS 3.1.13 (an attribution), undated
Lecture 14 and Sermon 5 in Lambeth Palace Library MS 3707 (an attribution), and a sermon
on 25 December 1616 (XCVI Sermons, 96-106). In Index of English Literary Manuscripts
(London: Mansell; New York: R. R. Bowker, 1980), 1: part 1:6 (entries AndL 5-6),
Peter Beal, who follows David Baxter's assessment of these documents and accepts them as
being by Andrewes, also follows Baxter's chronology and assigns the conjectural dates of
1597-1601 to the lecture and sermon in the Lambeth Palace Library MS, which was previously
housed in the Cambridge University Library as MS Add. 7976.
John Sparrow, "John Donne and Contemporary Preachers: Their Preparation of
Sermons for Delivery and for Publication," Essays and Studies 16 (1930), 144-178 (p. 151). W.
Fraser Mitchell's comment is also relevant: "Anglicans wrote their sermons before delivery"
(English Pulpit Oratory from Andrewes to Tillotson: A Study of Its Literary Aspects [1932;
reprint, New York: Russell and Russell, 1962], 26).
See Story, "The Text of Lancelot Andrewes's Sermons," 13, and Lancelot Andrewes:
Sermons, xlv-xlvi. I discuss the relationship between Andrewes's written and spoken words
in" `Betwixt the Hammer and the Anvill': Lancelot Andrewes's Revision Techniques in the
Manuscript of His 1620 Easter Sermon," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America
89 (1995): 149-182.
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