John Foxe was born in 1516 in Boston, Lincolnshire, England. At the age of sixteen, he went to Oxford, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1537, became a professor, and completed his masters in 1543. While teaching at Oxford, he became good friends with Hugh Latimer and William Tyndale, embracing Protestantism. His views were more extreme than his college allowed, so he left the university in 1545, married, and moved to London, where he became the tutor of the Duke of Norfolk’s grandchildren.
Foxe was ordained a deacon of the Church of England and worked for the Reformation, writing several tracts and beginning work on his account of Christian martyrs, but he was forced to leave the country in 1553 when the Catholic Queen Mary took the throne. The first part of his book was published in 1554 in Strasbourg, France. He then went to Frankfort to support John Knox’s Calvinistic Party and moved to Basel, Switzerland, where he served as a printer’s proofreader.
Manuscripts and eyewitness accounts of the Protestants’ persecution under Queen Mary were forwarded to Foxe in Basel, and he continued to work on his book, publishing the completed manuscript in 1559, the year after Queen Elizabeth * took the throne. Returning to England, he filled in more details, translated the book into English, and printed it in March 1563 under the title Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days.
Becoming popularly known as The Book of Martyrs, the text was widely read by English Puritans, shaping populaar opinion about Catholicism for at least a century.
Foxe was ordained an Anglican priest in 1560 but refused all church offices because of his Puritan beliefs. He continued to preach and publish his sermons, however, ministered to the victims of the plague of 1563, then begged Queen Elizabeth not to execute the Anabaptists in 1575 and the Jesuits in 1581.
Meanwhile, The Book of Martyrs was installed in English churches, read to the shipmates of Sir Francis Drake, and studied by Puritan families, who considered it a vital part of the education of their children.
Foxe died in April 1587 and was buried at St. Gile’s Church, Cripplegate, London. His wife survived him by eighteen years, and they had at least five children.
PERSECUTION OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS
In the Gospel of Matthew, we read that Simon Peter was the first person to openly acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God and that Jesus, seeing God’s hand in this acknowledgment, called Peter a rock on which He would build His church – a church that even the gates of hell would not be able to defeat. [Yeshua was referencing the Truth of his being the Son of God – the Rock on which the Ecclesia stand (Psalms 118:22; Isaiah 8:14; Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:7; 1 Peter 2:7; Acts 4:11; Romans 9:33; 1 Peter 2:6; Daniel 2:34, 35, 45; 1 Corinthians 10:4; 1 Peter 2:7; 2 Peter 2:4)]*
This indicates three things. First, that Christ will have a church in this world. Princes, kings, and other rulers of this world have used all their strength in cunning against the church, yet it continues to endure and hold its own. The storms that it has overcome are remarkable. I have written this history so the wonderful works of God within the church will be visible to all who might profit from them.
Of all the people who heard Jesus speak, the Pharisees and scribes should have been the first to accept Him, since they were so familiar with God’s law. Yet they persecuted and rejected Him, choosing to remain subject to Caesar, and it was Caesar who eventually destroyed them.
God’s punishment also fell heavily on the Romans. Hearing of Christ’s works, death, and resurrection, Emperor Tiberius proposed to the Roman senate that He be adored as God, but the senators refused, preferring the emperor to the King of heaven. In reply, God stirred their own emperors against them, causing most of the senate to be destroyed and the city of Rome to be afflicted for nearly three hundred years.
Tiberius became a tyrant, killing his own mother, his nephews, the princes of the city, and his own counselors. Seutonius reported him to be so stern that one day alone he saw twenty people executed. Pilate, under whom Christ was crucified, was sent to Rome and banished to the town of Vienne in Dauphiny, where he eventually committed suicide. Agrippa the elder was even imprisoned by Tiberius for some time.
After Tiberius’s death came Caligula, who demanded to be worshipped as a god. He banished Herod Antipas, the murderer of John the Baptist and condemner of Christ, and was assassinated in the fourth year of his reign.
Following thirteen cruel years under Claudius, the people of Rome fell under the power of Nero, who reigned for fourteen years, killing most of the Roman senate and destroying the whole Roman order of knighthood. He was so cruel and inhumane that he put to death his own mother, his brother-in-law, his sister, his wife, and his instructors Seneca and Lucan. Then he ordered Rome set on fire in twelve places while he sang the verses of Homer. To avoid the blame for this, he accused the Christians of setting the fires and caused them to be persecuted.
In the year AD 70, Titus and his father, Vespasian, destroyed Jerusalem and all of Galilee, killing over 1,100,000 Jews and selling the rest into slavery. So we see that those who refused Jesus were made to suffer for their actions.
THE APOSTLES
The first apostle to suffer after the martyrdom of Stephen was James, the brother of John. Clement tells us, “When this James was brought to the tribunal seat, he that brought him and was the cause of his trouble, seeing him to be condemned and that he should suffer death, was in such sort moved within heart and conscience that, as he went to the execution, he confessed himself also, of his own accord, to be a Christian. And so they were led forth together, where in the way he desired of James to forgive him what he had done. After James had a little paused with himself upon the matter, turning to him he said, ‘Peace be to thee brother’; and kissed him. And both were beheaded together, AD 36.”
Thomas preached to the Parthians, Medes, Persians, Carmanians, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and Magians. He was killed in Calamina, India.
Simon, brother of Jude and James the younger, who were all the son of Mary Cleophas and Alpheus, was bishop of Jerusalem after James. He was crucified in Egypt during the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan.
Simon the Apostle, called Cananeus and Zelotes, preached in Mauritania, Africa, and Britain. He was also crucified.
Mark, the first bishop of Alexandria, preached the gospel in Egypt. He was burned and buried in a place named Bucolus during Trajan’s reign.
Bartholomew is said to have preached in India and translated the Gospel of Matthew into their tongue. He was beaten, crucified, and beheaded in Albinopolis, Armenia.
Andrew, Peter’s brother, preached to the Scythians, Sogdians, and the Sacae in Sebastopolis, Ethiopia, in the year AD 80. He was crucified by Aegeas, the governor of Edessenes, and was buried in Patrae, in Achaia. Bernard and St. Cyprian mentioned the confession and martyrdom of this blessed apostle. Partly from them and partly from other reliable writers, we gather the following material.
When Andrew, through his diligent preaching, had brought many to the faith of Christ, Aegeas the governor asked permission of the Roman senate to force all Christians to sacrifice to and honor the Roman idols. Andrew thought he should resist Aegeas and went to him, telling him that a judge of men should first know and worship his Judge in heaven. While worshiping the true God, Andrew said, he should banish all false gods and blind idols from his mind.
Furious at Andrew Aegeas demanded to know if he was the man who had recently overthrown the temple of the gods and persuaded men to become Christians – a “superstitious sect” that had recently been declared illegal by the Romans.
Andrew replied that the rulers of Rome didn’t understand the truth. The Son of God, who came into the world for man’s sake, taught that the Roman gods were devils, enemies of mankind, teaching men to offend God and causing Him to turn away from them. By serving the devil, men fall into all kinds of wickedness, Andrew said, and after they die, nothing but their evil deeds are remembered.
The proconsul ordered Andrew not to preach these things anymore or he would face a speedy crucifixion. Whereupon Andrew replied, “I would not have preached the honor and glory of the cross if I feared the death of the cross.” He was condemned to be crucified for teaching a new sect and taking away the religion of the Roman gods.
Andrew, going toward the place of execution and seeing the cross waiting for him, never changed his expression. Neither did he fail in his speech. His body fainted not, nor did his reason fail him, as often happens to men about to die. He said, “Oh cross, most welcome and longed for! With a willing mind, joyfully and desirously, I come to you, being the scholar of Him which did hang on you, because I have always been your lover and yearn to embrace you.”
Matthew wrote his Gospel to the Jews in the Hebrew tongue. After he had converted Ethiopia and all Egypt, Hircanus the king sent someone to kill him with a spear.
After years of preaching to the barbarous nations, Philip was stoned and crucified in Hierapolis, Phrygia, and buried there with his daughter.
Of James, the brother of the Lord, we read the following. James, being considered a just and perfect man, governed the church with the apostles. He drank no wine or any strong drink, ate no meat, and never shaved his head. He was the only man allowed to enter into the holy place, for he never wore wool, just linen. He would enter into the temple alone, fall on his knees, and ask remission for the people, doing this so often that his knees lost their sense of feeling and became hardened, like the knees of a camel. Because of his holy life, James was called “The Just” and “the safeguard of the people.”
When many of their chief men had been converted, the Jews, scribes, and Pharisees began to fear that soon all the people would decide to follow Jesus. They met with James, saying, “We beg you to restrain the people, for they believe Jesus as though He were Christ. Persuade those who come to the Passover to think correctly about Christ, because they will all listen to you. Stand on top of the temple so you can be heard by everyone.”
During Passover, the scribes and Pharisees put James on top of the temple, calling out to him, “You just man, whom we all ought to obey, this people is going astray after Jesus, who was crucified.”
And James answered, “Why do you ask me of Jesus the Son of Man? He sits on the right hand of the Most High and shall come in the clouds of heaven.”
Hearing this, many in the crowd were persuaded and glorified God, crying, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”
Then the scribes and Pharisees realized they had done the wrong thing by allowing James to testify of Christ. They cried out, “Oh, this just man is seduced, too!” Then they went up and threw James off the temple.
But James wasn’t killed by the fall. He turned, fell on his knees, and called, “O Lord God, Father, I beg You to forgive them for they know not what they do.”
They decided to stone James, but a priest said to them, “Wait! What are you doing? The just man is praying for you!” But one of the men there – a fuller – took the instrument he used to beat cloth and hit James on the head, killing him, and they buried him where he fell. James was a true witness for Christ to the Jews and the Gentiles.
(To be continued …)
*WP4Y
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