Thomas Cranmer citations

Thomas Cranmer fut l'un des principaux artisans de la Réforme anglaise et archevêque de Canterbury durant les règnes d'Henri VIII, d'Édouard VI et de Marie Ire. Il prononça le divorce d'Henri VIII et de Catherine d'Aragon qui entraîna la séparation de l'Église d'Angleterre et du Saint-Siège. Avec Thomas Cromwell, il défendit le principe de suprématie royale donnant au roi l'autorité sur les affaires religieuses au sein de son royaume.

En tant qu'archevêque de Canterbury, il fut responsable de l'établissement des premières structures doctrinales et liturgiques de l'Église d'Angleterre. Sous le règne d'Henri VIII, Thomas Cranmer ne mena pas de changements radicaux dans l'Église du fait des luttes de pouvoirs entre les religieux conservateurs et réformistes. Il parvint cependant à publier la première liturgie en langue anglaise officiellement autorisée, l'Exhortation and Litany.

À l'accession au trône d'Édouard VI, Thomas Cranmer fut capable d'appliquer de profondes réformes. Il rédigea et compila les deux premières éditions du Livre de la prière commune reprenant la liturgie complète de l'Église anglicane. Avec l'aide de plusieurs réformateurs européens auxquels il donna refuge, il formula de nouveaux canons doctrinaux pour l'eucharistie, le célibat sacerdotal, le rôle des images dans les lieux de culte et la vénération des saints. Cranmer promulgua les nouvelles doctrines dans le Livre de la prière commune, le Books of Homilies et d'autres publications.

Après le couronnement de la catholique Marie Ire, Thomas Cranmer fut jugé pour trahison et hérésie. Emprisonné durant plus de deux ans et sous la pression des autorités religieuses, il se rétracta à plusieurs reprises et semblait s'être réconcilié avec l'Église catholique romaine. Néanmoins, le jour de son exécution, il abjura ses rétractations pour mourir comme un hérétique aux yeux des catholiques et comme un martyr pour les protestants. Sa disparition fut immortalisée dans le Livre des Martyrs de John Foxe et son héritage vit encore dans l'Église d'Angleterre via le Book of Common Prayer et les Trente-neuf articles, une déclaration de foi anglicane dérivée de ses travaux. Wikipedia

✵ 2. juillet 1489 – 21. mars 1556

Thomas Cranmer: Citations en anglais

“It is not also taught you in Scripture, that you should desire St. Rock to preserve you from the pestilence, to pray to St. Barbarra to defend you from thunder or gun-shot, to offer St. Loy an horse of wax, a pig to St. Anthony, a candle to St, Sithine. But I should be too long, if I were to rehearse unto you all the superstitions that have grown out of the invocation and praying to saints departed, wherewith men have been seduced, and God's honour given to creatures.
This was also no small abuse that we called the images by the names of the things, whom they did represent. For we were won't to say, "This is St. Ann's altar;"-"My father is gone a pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham;"-" In our church St. James standeth on the right hand of the high altar." These speeches we were wont to use, although they be not to be commended. For St. Austin in the exposition of the 113th Psalm affirmeth, that they who do call such images, as the carpenter hath made, do change the truth of God into a lie. It is not also taught you in all Scripture.
Thus, good children, I have declared how we were wont to abuse images, not that hereby I condemn your fathers, who were men of great devotion, and had an earnest love towards God, although their zeal in all points was not ruled and governed by true knowledge, but they were seduced and blinded partly by the common ignorance that reigned in their time, partly by the covetousness of their teachers, who abused the simplicity of the unlearned people to the maintenance of their own lucre and glory. But this be profitable, for if they had, either Christ would have taught it or the Holy Ghost would have revealed it unto the Apostles, which they did not. And if they did, the Apostles were very negligent that would not make some mention of it, and speak some good word for images, seeing that they speak so many against them. And by this means Anti-christ and his holy Papists had more knowledge or fervent zeal to give s godly things ad profitable for us, than had the very holy saints of Christ, yea more than Christ himself and the Holy Ghost. Now forasmuch, good children, as images be neither necessary nor profitable in our churches and temples, nor were not used at the beginning in Christ's nor the Apostles' time, nor many years after, and that at length they were brought in by bishops of Rome, maugre emperors' teeth; and seeing also, that they be very slanderous to Christ's religion, for by them the name of God is blasphemed among the infidels, Turks, and Jews, which because of our images do call Christian religion, idolatry and worshiping of images: and for as much also, as they have been so wonderfully abused within this realm to the high contumely and dishonor of God, and have been great cause of blindness and of much contention among the King's Majesty's loving subjects and are like so to be still, if they should remain: and chiefly seeing God's word speaketh so much against them, you may hereby right well consider what great causes and ground the King's Majesty had to take them away within his realm, following here in the example of the godly King Hezekias, who brake down the brazen serpent, when he saw it worshiped, and was therefore praised of God, notwithstanding at the first the same was made and set up by God's commandment, and was not only a remembrance of God's benefits, before received, but also a figure of Christ to come. And not only Hezekias, but also Manasses, and Jehosaphat, and Josias, the best kings that were of the Jews, did pull down images in the time of their reign.”

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Thomas Cranmer

The Life, Martyrdom, and Selections from the Writings of Thomas Cranmer https://books.google.com/books?id=FvNeAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=The+Life,+Martyrdom,+and+Selections+from+the+Writings+of+Thomas+Cranmer+...&source=bl&ots=LbXiMjz5Zp&sig=0pi5SHuxfdt_YUoiJcxvLgr7x5E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzmZL_wsfaAhVl6YMKHWubBkcQ6AEILDAB by Thomas Cranmer, p.139-142, (1809)