ABSTRACT
In the popular mind, the application of the term ‘casuistry’ to certain genres of practical ethics that developed within early Protestantism might appear rather odd. In the British Isles at least, casuistry has become associated with the verbal shenanigans and moral laxism of Roman Catholic theologians who, in response to Henry VIII’s establishment of the Church of England, sought to re-evangelize ‘virtuous Albion’ by means of equivocal statements and evasive pronouncements on moral duty. This highly colourful image-one which has found repeated expression in literary and theological works from the late sixteenth century onwards in the persona of the ‘scheming Jesuit’—is preserved within the English-speaking consciousness by Lord Macaulay’s oft-quoted description of the casuist as ‘one willing and competent to soothe consciences with sophisms’.1
