Faith & Spirit Quote by John Jewel

Jewel’s line is a piece of Reformation-era persuasion disguised as simple analogy. By casting Scripture as “unto our souls” what the soul is “unto our body,” he turns the word of God from a church-managed resource into an existential necessity: not decoration, not optional guidance, but the animating principle without which the inner life decays into mere flesh.

The intent is polemical. Jewel, a leading Anglican apologist in a century of religious fracture, is arguing against a Christianity mediated primarily through clerical authority, sacramental machinery, or inherited custom. The metaphor quietly demotes those structures. If the word is the soul’s soul, then tradition without Scripture is a body without breath: it may look intact, but it cannot live. That’s a radical repositioning of power, shifting the center of gravity from institution to text, from priestly gatekeeping to a direct encounter with divine speech.

The subtext also flatters and disciplines the listener. It offers intimacy - God’s word as something internal, vital, life-giving - while setting a hard criterion for spiritual health. Neglect Scripture and you’re not merely uninformed; you are spiritually asphyxiated. In the politics of the English Reformation, where legitimacy depended on proving continuity with “true” Christianity, the line works as a compact manifesto: the renewed church is the one rebuilt around the word, because the word is what makes the soul more than a name.