Reformation and the Reformer John Foxe - Article Example

John Foxe John Foxe was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, in the United Kingdom. He obtained an education at Oxford; and he continued at that place, as a fellow of Magdalen College. He made many enemies, for subscribing to the Protestant ideology (Loades). In those days, the Catholics would brook no criticism of their beliefs, and were given to torturing and burning at the stake, any person who confronted them or even seemed to be a threat to their ideology. Not surprisingly, John Foxe was forced to resign from his fellowship, in 1545, on account of the sustained efforts of those who opposed Protestantism (John Foxe). Subsequently, John Foxe secured a job as a tutor in Charlecote, where he was entrusted with the education of the children of William Lucy. In 1547, he married Agnes Randall, who hailed from Coventry. Subsequently, he found employment in the London household of the Duchess of Richmond. He worked there as a tutor to the three children of the executed Henry Howard, brother of the duchess and an earl of Surrey (John Foxe). At that place, John Foxe was provided with an opportunity to meet John Bale, the English churchman and Bishop of Ossory, who was a controversialist and historian. His commentary on Revelation influenced the views of John Foxe, regarding the history of the church. John Foxe developed a deep friendship with Thomas the duke of Norfolk. In 1550, Nicholas Ridley appointed John Foxe as a deacon, and he commenced to preach in London (John Foxe). At that time, Mary I ascended the throne and she unleashed a reign of terror. A large number of Protestants were burned at the stake with alarming frequency. Thus, in the year 1554, John Foxe was forced to flee England, ahead of the murderous minions of the Catholic Church, to the Continent(John Foxe). This saved him from torture and certain death at the hands of the religious bigots, who were at the beck and call of Bloody Mary. After passing through many European cities, John Foxe finally found a safe haven in Basel, Switzerland. He managed to eke out a living by working for the Protestant publisher, Johann Oporinus. The latter encouraged Foxe to produce a much expanded account, regarding the Lollard martyrs. This major project was published at Strasbourg, in 1554, under the title Commentarii rerum in ecclesia gestarum (John Foxe). In the meanwhile, the tyrannical Bloody Mary was gathered unto her forefathers; and Elizabeth ascended the throne of England. A much relieved John Foxe returned to his native land, in August 1559. This was subsequent to the publication of his work on the Lollard martyrs. Thereafter, he was appointed a priest in the Saint Paul’s Cathedral by the Bishop of London. Had Foxe compromised on his beliefs, he could have reached a preeminent position in the church, as he was provided with every opportunity to do so (John Foxe). However, Foxe’s intellectual and moral integrity were legion, and he did succumb to such base allurements. John Foxe expressed a marked reluctance to forsake his Protestant views, and in addition, he refused to don clerical vestments. This proved detrimental to his reach the top echelons of the church’s hierarchy. Thereafter, he was seen to be deeply engrossed in his favorite subject, martyrology. In the year 1563, his first work on this subject was published in English, and it bore the imposing title Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days. It was a much larger volume than his 1559 publication, and it was published by John Day(John Foxe). After this monumental publication, John Foxe achieved considerable fame in England. This work attracted considerable criticism from the Catholics; and in the year 1570, Foxe presented another edition of this work, which included some more histories of the ancient Christian martyrs, and also refuted the accusations of his opponents. In this edition, John Foxe relied to a major extent on the 4th century Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. Subsequently, he made several significant changes to his magnum opus, the Actes and Monuments, chiefly by editing and re-editing, and making inclusions and deletions. This was the distinguishing feature of his 1576 and 1583 editions of this tome; as also that of the 1596 posthumous Elizabethan edition (John Foxe). In order to endow the Protestant church with a unified front, John Foxe had deliberately, played down the doctrinal differences that had prevailed among the Protestant martyrs. Nevertheless, Foxe was successful in depicting these martyrs as heroic personalities who had suffered extensively, under the reign of religious terror, unleashed by the Catholic church of England. Thus, his work served to project the Protestant martyrs as veritable heroes. Foxe described the conduct of martyrs, while being burned at the stake, and employed the conventional ethical values of classical biography. In addition, he utilized material obtained from heresy proceedings, and achieved considerable success in depicting these martyrs as Protestant heroes. This prototype had considerable influence on subsequent maverick writers, like John Milton, John Bunyan, and George Fox (John Foxe). This work was popularly known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs; and he released its Latin version in Strasburg and Basle. In 1556, his Latin play Christus triumphans was published in Basle. In 1557, Foxe appealed to the English aristocracy, seeking their intervention, in preventing the ruthless repression of the Protestants by the regime of Queen Mary I. Subsequently, Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne of England, and the mindless persecution of the Protestants came to a standstill. Foxe did not progress in the Anglican Church, because of his extreme Protestant views, which prevented him from wearing the surplice and other such religious accoutrements. Foxe penned several works against the Catholic Church, such as A Sermon of Christ Crucified, Anglo – Saxon texts of the Gospels and a Latin treatise on the Eucharist (Foxe, John (1516 - 1587)). John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs was of great historical import, as it chronicled the various events that had transpired during the Reformation. His work dealt with the martyrs, at some length(Hagstotz and Hagstotz). There was no other work, in this period, which described English history of those times. The ideas and views of John Foxe have become popular in the Nineteenth century. The renowned English authoress George Eliot had referred to these beliefs in her works. However, authors like William Cobbett had seriously attempted to set aside the views promoted by John Foxe (Foxe). The less educated people used to adopt these ideologies to criticize the Christianity and its philosophies. John Foxe described the executions of Protestants by the Church of England, in graphic detail. These descriptions were aimed at depicting the Church of England as a modern version of the ancient Church of Rome, with all its trappings of power and perniciousness. He was at pains to stress that the Church in Rome was deviant in the extreme (Foxe). Moreover, he extolled the Protestant martyrs as heroes who had died for a great moral cause. The reign of Queen Mary had engendered a rule of terror and unparalleled iniquity, in which the Protestants had been subjected to gruesome tortures, before being put to death, in the most heinous manner possible. John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments greatly influenced English thought. According to historians, this book promoted the Catholic myth of the Seventeenth Century, which attempted to describe the English Catholics as conspirators. It was sought to establish by these means that these Catholics were aiming to seize power and overthrow the state. These perceived threats from the Catholics resulted in the English Civil War, the Monmouth rebellion, the Popish plot conspiracy and the Glorious Revolution, which led to the expulsion of James II (Foxe). As such, the Actes and Monuments or the Book of Martyrs by John Foxe served to demonstrate that the Roman Catholic Church had let loose a reign of terror and tyranny, against the people of England. The church had been operated by foreign powers, which had brutalized the English, through their proxy the Church. Therefore, John Foxe not only attempted to characterize Roman Catholicism as a deviant form of Christianity; but he was also able to impress upon the people of England that they could not be subjugated by foreign powers or the church. Annotated Bibliography Foxe, John (1516 - 1587). 2000. 3 February 2010 . In this article, there is a description, regarding the early years of John Foxe as a scholar. Thereafter, his flight to Switzerland, in order to escape the English version of the Spanish Inquisition, at the hands of Mary I, is described. It was at this retreat that John Foxe penned his great work, Actes and Monuments. Foxe, John. The Acts and Monuments of the Christian Church. 3 February 2010 . The Times published this article on John Foxe and his times. It depicts an age where extreme brutality was practiced against the people by the rulers. Those were times, when religious beliefs could make or mar a person. The mere fact that a person harboured the wrong religious views, was sufficient to attract a most horrifying death by torture. Hagstotz, Gideon and Hilda Hagstotz. Heroes of the Reformation. 7 February 2010 . The work by Gideon and Hilda, deals with the Protestant Reformation, and some of its greatest heroes and scholars. Not surprisingly, there is a very important section devoted to John Foxe and his works, chiefly the Acts and Monuments. John Foxe. 3 February 2010 . This particular article, constitutes a succinct biography regarding John Foxe. This intrepid man refused to succumb to the pressure brough to bear on Protestants by Bloody Mary, and he preferred a self imposed exile to the Contintent, to giving up his beliefs. Loades, David. The Reformed Reader. 2007. 7 February 2010 . This article describes John Locke and his works, which were around 40 in number. However, it was his Acts and Monuments that gained tremendous recognition. This work also states that his magnum opus was made second to only the Holy Bible, by the Privy Council. Read More