Foxe's Book of Maryrs and Maryrs' Mirror

[CopticChristian]

But they were not written from a Catholic perspective…but an Anabaptist perspective…their “sacred story/myth” of themselves as they perceived themselves to be…the People of God…and under persecution…facing drownings and fires and prison wove for them “proof” they were the “restoration of primitive Christianity” and Ignatius for what ever reason to them appeared to embrace some of the very tenets Anabaptists embraced…perhaps martyrdom…rather than deny Christ…to them THAT IS what they were being asked to do…history from their perspective is NOT deceit or malicious intent…in Ignatius the Anabaptists found a man in church history who faced death with grace and hope…many of them were living with a similar threat for simply being Anabaptist…

The premise is Anabaptist history. Read post #13. Understand that they are including history that is not theirs to prove their point.

Example.

I want to prove to you that people have been persecuted for athiesm. I take the history of those that have beliefs that are not athiest and use it as a premise for persecution of beliefs. The entire treatise is rendered false.

It is a treatise with a premise that is not consistent with the stated intent. I read lots. I usually evaluate what I read and see if it worth my time, if it written honestly, if it supports the intent for which it was written. Foxe’s fails the test on all counts. You may read it. You may quote it. I find anyone quoting this treatise and using it as a source of fact deceived by the premise and therefore any conclusions based on reference to this treatise are also false.

You read as you wish. I don’t have time to waste on fiction purported to be history.

I read science, history, theology and whatever. When I read something I usually scan it. I then look at the conclusion. I look at the premise. I then take what I know and test the writing to see if there is inconsistency. I look for bias. When I find anything that violates honesty I usually discard it or examine it for the bias so that I know the bias and analyze the writing from a perspective of from whence the bias came.

I read for absolutes, generalities, deletions and generalizations. I have been a student of communication to include NLP and Neurosemantics. The basic tenet is that “the map is not the territory”…I try to see what map is being presented. You can view the things I look for here…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-model_(NLP

I find that Fox fails at all levels of communication and is written for less than an intelligent, educated, informed audience. But that is me.

I do not just pick things up and read them without analyzing them. That is how my mind works.

 

[Publisher]

Thank you friend…I think I have a better idea where you are coming from now.

 

[Contarini]

Read Post #13. I don’t have to prove anything except one falsehood. One falsehood proves that the treatise is fiction.

Balderdash. This is not a reasonable or responsible way to read a text.

I hate to think what this would do to Catholic sources.

The tretise suggests a history of Anabaptist.

Since Foxe was not an Anabaptist, something has gone wrong here. I think you are confusing the two works mentioned in the OP?

And at any rate, trying to portray early Christians as one’s spiritual ancestors is not a simple “fiction” if the kind your original words imply.

No serious scholar takes either of these texts as a useful source for early Christian history. I said that some posts ago.

Therefore, you are simply obfuscating and evading the real question, which is whether they are useful sources for early modern and perhaps (in Foxe’s case, with regard to the Lollards in England) late medieval church history.

Most scholars think they are.

You disagree.

Yet you cannot give an example.

It is illogical to say that because Foxe makes partisan claims about early Christians being really Protestants (claims that he certainly believed to be true, based on fragmentary evidence that was very much in dispute–bear in mind, for instance, that in the sixteenth century no one had the authentic versions of Ignatius’ letters in front of them, and Protestants were quite right to question the authenticity of the “long versions” then extant and hence of Catholic claims about Ignatius based on those versions) therefore his work is “fiction” when he claims to be recounting contemporary or near-contemporary events.

If you choose to read this way, you are essentially ruling out every premodern text ever written, and many modern ones as well. . . . it’s not a reasonable approach.

Edwin

 

[CopticChristian]

Balderdash. **This is not a reasonable or responsible way to read a text.**I hate to think what this would do to Catholic sources.

Since Foxe was not an Anabaptist, something has gone wrong here. I think you are confusing the two works mentioned in the OP?

And at any rate, trying to portray early Christians as one’s spiritual ancestors is not a simple “fiction” if the kind your original words imply.

**No serious scholar takes either of these texts as a useful source for early Christian history. I said that some posts ago.**Therefore, you are simply obfuscating and evading the real question, which is whether they are useful sources for early modern and perhaps (in Foxe’s case, with regard to the Lollards in England) late medieval church history.

Most scholars think they are.

You disagree.

Yet you cannot give an example.

It is illogical to say that because Foxe makes partisan claims about early Christians being really Protestants (claims that he certainly believed to be true, based on fragmentary evidence that was very much in dispute–bear in mind, for instance, that in the sixteenth century no one had the authentic versions of Ignatius’ letters in front of them, and Protestants were quite right to question the authenticity of the “long versions” then extant and hence of Catholic claims about Ignatius based on those versions) therefore his work is “fiction” when he claims to be recounting contemporary or near-contemporary events.

If you choose to read this way, you are essentially ruling out every premodern text ever written, and many modern ones as well. . . . it’s not a reasonable approach.

Edwin

I truly believe that it is prudent to eschew obfuscation. I have errored mentioning Fox, that should have been Martyr’s Mirror by Thielman J. VanBraght. ERRATA…not Fox.

Thank goodness no serious scholar takes these texts as a useful source. Regardless of the mindset of yesterday. Today it is useless except to point out to those that believe it is useful how useless it is.

I read as I choose. You read as you choose. To suggest that someone read your way would cause someone to be like you and then that creates issues as to does someone want to be like you. I never suggested that anyone read like me. I said I read this. way. I believe you have some notion that you are teaching me something.

I hava a responsibility to read as I choose as my opinion costs money. I get paid for my opinion and therefore my opinion is valued at no less than $200-$500/hour. I find that when my opinion has value I am sure to create an honest insightful opinion even when I am not paid. It keeps the mind functioning at the same level paid or not.

You may render opinions as you choose, read as you choose, and understand that others read as they choose. You may even find that some might disagree with you and that some may be disagreeable.

With fondness absent adulation I bid you goodbye.

 

[CopticChristian]

Balderdash. This is not a reasonable or responsible way to read a text.

I hate to think what this would do to Catholic sources.

Since Foxe was not an Anabaptist, something has gone wrong here. I think you are confusing the two works mentioned in the OP?

And at any rate, trying to portray early Christians as one’s spiritual ancestors is not a simple “fiction” if the kind your original words imply.

No serious scholar takes either of these texts as a useful source for early Christian history. I said that some posts ago.

Therefore, you are simply obfuscating and evading the real question, which is whether they are useful sources for early modern and perhaps (in Foxe’s case, with regard to the Lollards in England) late medieval church history.

Most scholars think they are.

You disagree.

Yet you cannot give an example.

It is illogical to say that because Foxe makes partisan claims about early Christians being really Protestants (claims that he certainly believed to be true, based on fragmentary evidence that was very much in dispute–bear in mind, for instance, that in the sixteenth century no one had the authentic versions of Ignatius’ letters in front of them, and Protestants were quite right to question the authenticity of the “long versions” then extant and hence of Catholic claims about Ignatius based on those versions) therefore his work is “fiction” when he claims to be recounting contemporary or near-contemporary events.

If you choose to read this way, you are essentially ruling out every premodern text ever written, and many modern ones as well. . . . it’s not a reasonable approach.

Edwin

So back on track with Foxe’s…I found several links that discuss Foxe’s work and one erudite individual in 2006 that made a profession and recommendation…

archive.org/stream/acriticalandhis00foxegoog#page/n5/mode/2up

archive.org/stream/acriticalandhis00andrgoog#page/n4/mode/2up

socrates58.blogspot.com/2011/02/refutation-of-historical-inaccuracies.html

oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Foxe’s_Book_of_Martyrs

archive.catholic.com/thisrock/1998/9803conv.asp

The book is certainly highly biased and propagandistic. But you can’t expect Protestants not to read martyrdom accounts from their own tradition. What you do need to tell him is:

1. For the early Church there are much better sources (Eusebius, for instance, which was one of Foxe’s sources).

1. English Protestants themselves killed both Catholics and more radical Protestants. If he wants to understand the Reformation era, he should supplement Foxe with Anabaptist accounts like the Martyrs’ Mirror and Catholic accounts like Roper’s life of St. Thomas More, John Gerard’s Autobiography of a Hunted Priest, or William Allen’s Briefe Historie of the Glorious Martyrdom of Twelve Reverend Priests.

1. He should bear in mind that Foxe is not neutral but is writing with a real agenda. That doesn’t make him less trustworthy than Catholic propagandists, but he is a propagandist.

An excellent and very well-balanced book on sixteenth-century martyrdom is Brad Gregory, Salvation at Stake. Gregory is a Catholic, but in my judgment he’s very fair to all sides. You might want to get your dad a copy. Contarini, Edwin 2006

 

[Contarini]

I truly believe that it is prudent to eschew obfuscation. I have errored mentioning Fox, that should have been Martyr’s Mirror by Thielman J. VanBraght. ERRATA…not Fox.

Thank goodness no serious scholar takes these texts as a useful source.

For the early Church.

They are a very useful resource for their own times.

Regardless of the mindset of yesterday. Today it is useless except to point out to those that believe it is useful how useless it is.

Well, I’m not as much of a modernist as you seem to be.

I fail to see how a Catholic, of all people, can dismiss the “mindset of yesterday” so blithely!

It should be noted in Foxe’s favor that he protested the way St. Edmund Campion was treated by the Elizabethan government. He seems genuinely to have believed that Christians should persecute each other, and to have been genuinely disturbed when his own side started doing what he had excoriated the other side for doing. Yes, as I said in my older post which you quoted, he’s a propagandist, certainly. But a sincere and honorable one, as far as I can tell. There’s no need to vilify him just because one needs to read him critically and be aware of his extreme bias.

Edwin

 

[CopticChristian]

For the early Church.

They are a very useful resource for their own times.

Well, I’m not as much of a modernist as you seem to be.

I fail to see how a Catholic, of all people, can dismiss the “mindset of yesterday” so blithely!

It should be noted in Foxe’s favor that he protested the way St. Edmund Campion was treated by the Elizabethan government. He seems genuinely to have believed that Christians should persecute each other, and to have been genuinely disturbed when his own side started doing what he had excoriated the other side for doing. Yes, as I said in my older post which you quoted, he’s a propagandist, certainly. But a sincere and honorable one, as far as I can tell. There’s no need to vilify him just because one needs to read him critically and be aware of his extreme bias.

Edwin

The past has purpose. It has only one purpose. There can be no other purpose. You cannot change the past. You can learn from it. You can choose to learn a little. You can choose to learn a lot. I believe that the purpose of these books as sources of learning for some can be sources of information for learning. I believe that these books for some perpetutate negative emotions and that is not learning. I am in favor of choice. I am in favor of learning. The tragedy is that these books are often read by those that choose not to learn and see them for other than what they are…

 

[Contarini]

The tragedy is that these books are often read by those that choose not to learn and see them for other than what they are…

I entirely agree with this sentence. I was such a person myself, once, and have known many others who approach these books in this way.

However, you don’t best correct such people (and I’m living witness that this is possible) by telling them that the books are fiction.

Ironically, it was exposure to the Martyrs’ Mirror point of view that helped persuade me to question the traditional Protestant view of things. My family owned a massive history of the Reformation by a 19th-century Presbyterian named J. A. Wylie, and I devoured this book as a kid (preteens and early teens). Wylie was extremely scornful of the Anabaptists, whom he saw as fanatics. Then my family got to know folks who admired the Anabaptists, quoted the Martyrs’ Mirror instead of Foxe, and reviled the “magisterial Reformers” for persecuting the Anabaptists and “clinging” to infant baptism and a state church. I came to realize that Wylie’s version of the story was hopelessly inaccurate with regard to the Anabaptists, and that opened me up to considering the possibility that he was just as unfair to the Catholics.

Calling Foxe or the MM fiction isn’t a good approach, first of all because that isn’t an appropriate term, but secondarily because it just antagonizes people. Better to help them see that there are multiple perspectives and that the Catholic Church had its saints and martyrs as well.

I refer you to my earlier post which you so diligently unearthed.

Edwin

 

[CopticChristian]

I entirely agree with this sentence. I was such a person myself, once, and have known many others who approach these books in this way.

**However, you don’t best correct such people (and I’m living witness that this is possible) by telling them that the books are fiction. **
Ironically, it was exposure to the Martyrs’ Mirror point of view that helped persuade me to question the traditional Protestant view of things. My family owned a massive history of the Reformation by a 19th-century Presbyterian named J. A. Wylie, and I devoured this book as a kid (preteens and early teens). Wylie was extremely scornful of the Anabaptists, whom he saw as fanatics. Then my family got to know folks who admired the Anabaptists, quoted the Martyrs’ Mirror instead of Foxe, and reviled the “magisterial Reformers” for persecuting the Anabaptists and “clinging” to infant baptism and a state church. I came to realize that Wylie’s version of the story was hopelessly inaccurate with regard to the Anabaptists, and that opened me up to considering the possibility that he was just as unfair to the Catholics.

Calling Foxe or the MM fiction isn’t a good approach, first of all because that isn’t an appropriate term, but secondarily because it just antagonizes people. Better to help them see that there are multiple perspectives and that the Catholic Church had its saints and martyrs as well.

I refer you to my earlier post which you so diligently unearthed.

Edwin

You best correct as you choose in your experience and I best correct as I choose in my experience. I have reasons to call it fiction and generate dialogue. You have reasons to call it other than that and create dialogue. You believe that calling something fiction antagonizes them. I see it as getting their full attention.

As a Martial Artist there are many styles and no one style that suits anyone. Bruce Lee pointed that out in pointing out the notion of systems. I am short and stocky and therefore Tai Kwan Do is not for me. Since I have studied Judo, Shotokan, Kempo, White Dragon Kung Fu and have competed in tournaments…there is my way to defend and attack based on what I know and others do it another way…We use what we know to get what we want…I suggest you do the same.

Do you believe that you have the one best way to do something?

 

[Contarini]

You best correct as you choose in your experience and I best correct as I choose in my experience. I have reasons to call it fiction and generate dialogue. You have reasons to call it other than that and create dialogue. You believe that calling something fiction antagonizes them. I see it as getting their full attention.

As a Martial Artist there are many styles and no one style that suits anyone. Bruce Lee pointed that out in pointing out the notion of systems. I am short and stocky and therefore Tai Kwan Do is not for me. Since I have studied Judo, Shotokan, Kempo, White Dragon Kung Fu and have competed in tournaments…there is my way to defend and attack based on what I know and other do it another way…We use what we know to get what we want…I suggest you do the same.

Do you believe that you have the one best way to do something?

Saying what is not true is never, ever the best way to do something.

These books are not fiction.

I will abandon the practical argument since you reject it. The bottom line is that these books are valuable primary sources for their own time–highly biased and propagandistic but not to be rejected by anyone who wants to understand the religious conflicts of the sixteenth century.

Now if you want to tell deliberate falsehoods in order to get people’s attention, then I can’t stop you. Of course, if you were to do that, it would explain your readiness to assume that Foxe and the authors of the MM were doing that.

Edwin

 

[CopticChristian]

Saying what is not true is never, ever the best way to do something.

These books are not fiction.

I will abandon the practical argument since you reject it. The bottom line is that these books are valuable primary sources for their own time–highly biased and propagandistic but not to be rejected by anyone who wants to understand the religious conflicts of the sixteenth century.

Now if you want to tell deliberate falsehoods in order to get people’s attention, then I can’t stop you. Of course, if you were to do that, it would explain your readiness to assume that Foxe and the authors of the MM were doing that.

Edwin

You discount my understanding of fiction. When there are falsehoods and incorporation of information not attributable to the primary premise I call it fiction. You call it propaganda. If my memory serves me correct there is a posting saying the same things with different words…

 

[Contarini]

You discount my understanding of fiction. When there are falsehoods and incorporation of information not attributable to the primary premise

I don’t know what that last phrase means.

Human beings err. That’s where most falsehoods come from. You don’t thereby assume deliberate lying unless there is good reason to do so. And as I have pointed out several times, the clear errors in these texts pertain to their treatment of ancient sources (and you didn’t even point out such an error in Foxe–his treatment of the early Church is mostly cribbed from Eusebius, as a matter of fact). Bias is not the same thing as fiction.

I call it fiction. You call it propaganda.

Yes. I prefer accurate language.

Fiction means something that is simply made up out of whole cloth.That’s not what these books are, as far as we can tell.

From a purely historical point of view, if you call these texts fiction then you have to call the Bible fiction.

Edwin

 

[CopticChristian]

I don’t know what that last phrase means.

Human beings err. That’s where most falsehoods come from. You don’t thereby assume deliberate lying unless there is good reason to do so. And as I have pointed out several times, the clear errors in these texts pertain to their treatment of ancient sources (and you didn’t even point out such an error in Foxe–his treatment of the early Church is mostly cribbed from Eusebius, as a matter of fact). Bias is not the same thing as fiction.

Yes. I prefer accurate language.

Fiction means something that is simply made up out of whole cloth.That’s not what these books are, as far as we can tell.

From a purely historical point of view, if you call these texts fiction then you have to call the Bible fiction.

Edwin

Post 13 I pointed out concerning Martyrs Mirror the reason for the writing as per the book I see…

Martyrs Mirror on page 187 you will read…

“The fourth Council of Carthage establishes that those who desire to be baptized must first be examined and sounded relative to their faith”

and

“Cyril of Alexandria speaks soundly on baprism and opposes the errors of the Nastorians and Valentians”

The Book opens with this…

THE BLOODY TREAT OR MARTYRS MIRROR OF THE —
ANABAPTIST OR DEFENSELESS CHRISTIANS
WHO SUFFERED AND WERE SLAIN FOR THE TESTIMONY
CHRIST, THEIR SAVIOUR, FROM THE TIME OF CHRIST
UNTIL THE YEAR A. D. 1660

.It is supposed to be a testimony of persecution of Anabaptist. It is a complete lie. Cyril and the Council of Carthage are Catholic entitiies used to promote the lie. Do you have a copy of the book?

This is included as a premise and is false. You can call it propaganda. When I see something that is false and inaccurate as a premise for the treaty the entire thing becomes in my opinion, in my mind a work of fiction, built on a false premise.

You can call it whatever you like. As a historian you can read things that are true or not true, fiction, fact, fantasy and create an assumption of your understanding of history as you see it. I am not a historian and have no time to waste on use of something I deem to be fiction. Read away…

Martyrs Mirror is imaginative, it is based on pretense and does not represent fact…Here is the definition of fiction…

a. An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.

Martyrs Mirror takes facts and uses them to support a premise that ultimately is false based on its use of fact and renders it fancy and fiction…

 

[CopticChristian]

I don’t know what that last phrase means.

Human beings err. That’s where most falsehoods come from. You don’t thereby assume deliberate lying unless there is good reason to do so. And as I have pointed out several times, the clear errors in these texts pertain to their treatment of ancient sources (and you didn’t even point out such an error in Foxe–his treatment of the early Church is mostly cribbed from Eusebius, as a matter of fact). Bias is not the same thing as fiction.

Yes. I prefer accurate language.

Fiction means something that is simply made up out of whole cloth.That’s not what these books are, as far as we can tell.

From a purely historical point of view, if you call these texts fiction then you have to call the Bible fiction.

Edwin

Does something like these books do harm or good? If it does good, then it must do good for all. If it does harm for some then caution should be exercised.

americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=3403

The other volume close to the Amish heart is Martyrs Mirror. Compiled by an Anabaptist Dutchman named Thieleman J. van Braght and published in 1660, this awe-inspiring, 1,100-page tome chronicles 15 centuries of Christian martyrdom, beginning with Christ and the Apostles and continuing through the Anabaptist martyrs of the 17th century. Like the Ausbund, Martyrs Mirror recounts the persecution of the Anabaptists at the hands of Catholics and others. The Amish devotion to van Braght’s volume cannot be understated. Many Sunday afternoons I observed Amos, the paterfamilias, engrossed in these stories for hours. Like the Handbook, this book is also peppered with anti-Catholic sentiments. Through these works, Amish misconceptions about Catholicism are reinforced, generation after generation.

There is a population of people out there that do not read this as Propaganda and use it to stay isolated…is this good?

If it does so as seen in a defined population one can only wonder what it does for the populace at large that have no understanding of history, propaganda and see this as an accurate accounting to be anti-Catholic.

How many Protestants in the world generation after generation use these books to do the same as the Amish?

 

[Publisher]

I was given a Duoay Rheims Bible and a matching companion “LIves of the Saints”…both bound in matching brown leatherette with a gold cross on the cover of the Bible and a saint embossed in gold on the front of the “Lives of the Saints”…in many many respects…both Foxe’s Book of Martyrs" and “Martyr’s Mirror” is ‘our’ identification with the “suffering people of God”…no matter if they identified themselves as Catholic or Protestant…these Anabaptists and Protestants saw in these volumes a very similar volume as Catholics look when they get the “official” "Lives of the Saints’…volumes which marry myth and tradition in the retelling of the lives of the “heroes” of the faith.

 

[Sword_Brethren]

“The Protestant historian James Gairdner, in his “History of the English Church in the 16th Century,” has demonstrated that Fox was dishonest and worthless as a witness in the matter of the cruel excesses of that reign.” The reign of Queen Mary I of England.

A Catholic Dictionary
p.200

 

[CopticChristian]

I was given a Duoay Rheims Bible and a matching companion “LIves of the Saints”…both bound in matching brown leatherette with a gold cross on the cover of the Bible and a saint embossed in gold on the front of the “Lives of the Saints”…in many many respects…both Foxe’s Book of Martyrs" and “Martyr’s Mirror” is ‘our’ identification with the “suffering people of God”…no matter if they identified themselves as Catholic or Protestant…these Anabaptists and Protestants saw in these volumes a very similar volume as Catholics look when they get the “official” "Lives of the Saints’…volumes which marry myth and tradition in the retelling of the lives of the “heroes” of the faith.

Here is the question. Do Martyrs Mirror and Foxe’s book build the Faith? Are they Anti-Catholic? Are they anti-Faith building?

Martyrdom for any cause creates a hero. There are martyrs for Nazi Germany, Martyrs for Communism, Martyrs for Islam…Does martyrdom or giving your life for something equate to giving your life for the truth? This in the question in the end that has to be answered.

The opposite of that coin is the constant view that Mormons present of good fruits…good living…is this the measure of the truth of one’s beliefs?

I suggest anyone do an honest search on the internet for either of these books and see if they see what I see. Martyrs Mirror is presented as an important book for Menonites however it is not proposed as such by many Protestants. One Protestant proposes it as Propaganda and historical reading. For what?

Do a similar searc for Foxe’s and see if this is Faith building as proposed by you Publisher or more propaganda to keep people isolated in Protestant thought and anti-Catholic.

People live. People die. People give their lives for causes. I don’t recall in any of my learning an emphasis on Martyrdom. I knew about it. I was aware that it happened. I knew the greater love hath no man than to give up his life. My Church, my family and whatever I learned about the Catholic Faith was not presented as “look how much suffering” we endured…never heard it…I see this as an unusual way to proselytize and support a belief.

In my opinion, based in my interaction with Protestants that have read this book, based on my reading of this book, based on what is found in searches concerning these books…I see these books as Anti-Catholic, Anti-Faith building, Anti-unity and if so then they do not breed Charity and the love of Christ and if so they are anti-Christ…in my opinion…

I do not and have not seen those that have read these books seeing them as historical records to be cherished, as propaganda, no…they believe they are a record to oppose the One Holy Catholic Church because of the persecution of those that opposed it and it ain’t true the way these books are written.

 

[Jim_Dandy]

I have in my little collection of books, though still unread, volumes I and II of A Critical and Historical Review of Fox’s Book of Martyrs, Shewing the Inaccuries, Falsehoods, & Misrepresentations in That Work of Deception, by William Eusebius Andrews, printed and published by W.E. Andrews, 3, Chapterhouse Court, St. Paul’s Churchyard, London, 1824. The books, now nearly 200 years old, are rather fragile. I purchased them on the used book market.

The Introduction begins: “In undertaking to refute and expose the greatest mass of falsehood and calumny ever issued against the social and religious principles of our Catholic fellow-men, we may be condemned for our temerity, but we think we shall stand excused, when the active endeavours of bigotry, to give circulation to what is called Fox’s Book of Martyrs, are taken into consideration.”

Andrews goes on to write about “the obstacles which have so long existed to prevent Catholic writers from vindicating their religious doctrines and social maxims” in England.

I need to buy Fox’s (or Foxe’s) book for comparison. Andrews seems to have produced a point-by-point refutation of Fox’s claims, which he calls “fiction.”

Fox’s book is readily available. Protestant demand for anti-Catholic reading material has kept it in print these many years. The refution, Andrews’ books, are not in print.

 

[CopticChristian]

I have in my little collection of books, though still unread, volumes I and II of A Critical and Historical Review of Fox’s Book of Martyrs, Shewing the Inaccuries, Falsehoods, & Misrepresentations in That Work of Deception, by William Eusebius Andrews, printed and published by W.E. Andrews, 3, Chapterhouse Court, St. Paul’s Churchyard, London, 1824. The books, now nearly 200 years old, are rather fragile. I purchased them on the used book market.

The Introduction begins: “In undertaking to refute and expose the greatest mass of falsehood and calumny ever issued against the social and religious principles of our Catholic fellow-men, we may be condemned for our temerity, but we think we shall stand excused, when the active endeavours of bigotry, to give circulation to what is called Fox’s Book of Martyrs, are taken into consideration.”

Andrews goes on to write about “the obstacles which have so long existed to prevent Catholic writers from vindicating their religious doctrines and social maxims” in England.

I need to buy Fox’s (or Foxe’s) book for comparison. Andrews seems to have produced a point-by-point refutation of Fox’s claims, which he calls “fiction.”

Fox’s book is readily available. Protestant demand for anti-Catholic reading material has kept it in print these many years. The refution, Andrews’ books, are not in print.

Don’t buy it Protestant sources have made it available online for Propaganda purposes.

 

[Jim_Dandy]

Don’t buy it Protestant sources have made it available online for Propaganda purposes.

Haven’t found a free one. But I’m not a good researcher.

This is from a reviewer on Amazon:

QUOTE:

Readers of John Foxe’s book of martyres should realize that the most complete edition of this work was published in the 1800s and comprised 8 volumes. A bound photocopy of that edition is available from Still Waters Revival Books in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. They have a web site. The present edition is a small sampling of the real Foxe.

END QUOTE

Still Waters Revival Books offers a download of all eight original volumes for $14.95. They also offer a paperback of Rome’s Responsibility in the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

The one being offered by the many booksellers I have checked is the 1981 paperback cut version mentioned in the review above. I suppose any free ones are also the 1981 short version. I haven’t found a bound photocopy of the original to which the reviewer referred.
The original eight volumes are probably rare and available on the used book market – which means they’ll cost plenty, plenty. I haven’t found any reprints of the eight. I’ll continue searching.

Does anyone know of a real historian who quotes John Foxe’s book as a reliable historical source? From what I’ve read, his work seems to be part fact, part fiction.