The Acts and Monuments Online

Ad Dominvm Iesvm Christum servatorem clementissimum,

Eucharisticon Ioan. Foxi.

Translation

John Wade, University of Sheffield

To the Lord Jesus Christ, most merciful Saviour, a Thanksgiving from John Foxe.

The task, which I first took on and started under your auspices, is now finished, most high and reverend Jesus, and likewise most merciful Saviour. I have finally completed and brought this to a close through your kindness and favour, certainly contrary to all expectations and my strength: and so it remains, in accordance with my duty, for this little soul, like a votive tablet, to give thanks, if not as great as it should be (would that this were possible), but as great as it is able, to your most bountiful majesty, which has so mercifully with fruitful success and relief supported so wretched a little man, or rather the mere skin of a man, being agitated with so many and such great toils as would wear out even some burden bearing donkey. But although there is no point in pleading the difficulty of the work, which will hardly be able to be appraised by many, yet your omnipotent majesty is not unaware that the completion of this business, such as it is, has cost me unbearable cares, sleeplessness and worries, to which we would in no way have been equal, if the divine will of your favouring grace had not shone upon me, and involved itself in some way or other with my work. For why should I not admit and frankly attest what we have experienced in the accusation? For we have seen clearly, and we have almost caught sight with our very eyes of the outstanding energy of your exalted right hand, not only in promoting the success of the matter, but also in preserving life and breath amid the toils. And so it is a mark of your gift, most merciful Jesus, that the task undertaken under your auspices, has been carried forward thus far: we in turn, as should be our duty, give thanks for your mercy, both privately in our own name, and in a manner publicly in the name of your church. It is from this fact, indeed, namely that you, with such great inclination, favour illustrating their name, that we perceive how much you value the cause of your martyrs. And yet, even if no record of them were to exist here, those whose names have been inscribed in the book of your life could not fail to be most illustrious in every way. But it was in this way that your majesty wanted to declare, and make known to us men, how honourable it is for those who are fighting bravely for the glory of your name to die, whose life you so liberate from the ash and the funeral pyre, whose cause you so protect and whose dignity you show, that it receives from you the same [life], much more distinguished with the advantage of glory, than if they themselves had never otherwise lost it. For the business of fighting in your service brings this special blessing, far removed from this world, that, whether they live fighting in your camp, they live for you, or whether they die, they become famous more fortunately from their death than if they had lived at all.

In this way we see with how much greater glory Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, John Hooper, Bradford and the rest of the prize fighters in the same company, died fighting in your army, than if they had abandoned the posts in which they had been placed and put your cause after their own safety. For what people, what language, what nation, what old age of time, what posterity will not sing their praises, will not recognise their courage and will not admire their greatness. Who would have thought that Wickliff or Cobham had ever been born, if they had not acted so vigorously in your cause? How much honour did Huss of Bohemia and our own Tyndale have in the fact that they preferred to receive from you a life lost in the cause of your gospel than to keep it themselves. Let us look on the opposite side at your adversaries, of whom it is generally agreed that there were so many murders, injustices, cruelties against your own people, and likewise many crimes perpetrated secretly and wickedly by the same people, which they never expected would be publicly known; and yet what was ever designed by them in corners and in darkness so secretly against the Church, that your providence has not brought it out and will bring it out into the sunlight, and has brought it out in such a way that, where they themselves conceived in their hearts thoughts of praise, there they have acquired the utmost disgrace and reproach for themselves from which they will never be able to escape in life or end with death. Who does not now know of the Guises, the Bonners and the Storeys as the names of men accursed, and shudder? What day will obliterate their crimes, what memory bury them? And why do I list these men amid such a great crowd of your enemies? For whom has it ever been a success to rebel against your divine will or to profess himself to be an enemy to your Church? How celebrated and famous was the name of the Pope formerly in these lands? Now what is more rotten, what is more disgraceful? Initially men began to admire the eminence of Cardinals, and to honour it with much respect; likewise the houses of Monks and Nuns formerly had their own applause among the simple and credulous people. But after they had rejected your truth and begun to attack you, and become the murderers of your people, they finally slipped to such an extent that, save a few whom your grace exempted, the rest of the dregs seems to be nothing other than certain names left to disgrace.

These, of course, our most holy Lord and God, are preludes to your most just judgement, and from this it cannot be difficult to gauge what those whom you load with such great infamy and disgrace in this world, that is in their own kingdom, are to expect in the next. But leaving these aside, let us return to your holy Martyrs, in whose name we rightly and constantly owe and keep as it were a sacrifice of praise and thanks to your goodness. First, because to those fighting in the cause of your church you have given such a brave and keen spirit and one which rises above all their tortures against the Papist murderers. Secondly, because the propitious favour of your mercy has been present also with us as we were sweating in compiling their history. There is also this private debt owed in my own name to your outstanding love, that you have wanted my life, which is otherwise so often weak, to be preserved through your kindness in this task and labour whose immensity you alone know. But we all equally owe this debt in particular to your boundless love towards us, that you have thought it worthy to recall to light anew and reveal to the notice of your church the cause and innocence, as if gathered again from the ash, of your blessed Martyrs, whom the perversity of this world reduced to flames and ashes. For although there is no doubt that in that final judgement of yours, when the virtues of heaven are moved, all their cases will be examined with the utmost diligence before your judgement seat, yet it is something that here also in your church should not be unknown, the case of these very people, their deeds, and the rest of the virtues their lives. Then a richer glory will abound for them, and in the meantime a greater fruit will abound for us, when from their righteous deeds, their integrity, their innocence, their faith and patience, it can generally be agreed not only what they themselves have done, but what must also be done by us through their example.

But here again, sweetest Jesus, there is need of the kind protection of your favour. For we who are the sons of your Martyrs, and for whom it is particularly appropriate that we imitate our ancestors, now retain almost nothing of our parents, except this freedom of life alone which they left behind, having gained it with their blood: this also we most intemperately abuse, so that now there is the danger that we may not only not deserve to be the sons of the Martyrs, but not even their brothers. For assuredly it is shameful to report what a difference and what complete disharmony there is between our way of life and the path of discipline which they pursued. But why should I tell you, whose majesty perceives and examines everything? How much eagerness and concern did they have out of love for you to resign all other things and indeed themselves to contempt for life, to account the world with all its desires as of small importance, and to reject pleasures as mere trifles? And the dangers which were threatening them on all sides did not allow them to have time for amassing wealth, much less for accumulating honours. But our life now, our enthusiasm and all our exertion, on the contrary, what do they breathe except the world, what else do they seem other than a sort of perpetual lying in wait for and aspiring to ephemeral things, wealth and honours. But how splendidly those people would have thought things had turned out for them, if they had been allowed even to live. And on that account there were many among them who offered Queen Mary all their means and possessions as far as their last penny, if she would only give them back their conscience. And what folly of possession hounds us, for whom neither a single nor an insignificant way of life can be sufficient? Without measure, without end, we gape at riches, priesthoods and expanding property. With what great ambition do we wear out our friends and enemies, not only so that we may live, but that we may live exalted and honoured? Concerning their faith, concerning their clemency, endurance, innocence and unbelievable patience, what can sufficiently be said? With how much determination, with what eagerness of heart did they suffer whatever was inflicted, resigning all vengeance to God, to whom they also entrusted their cause. No power of their adversaries was able to dislodge them, nor threats break them, nor insults move them, nor dangers nor tortures subdue them, nor allurements flatter them.

Let us now compare our weakness with these qualities. But shames prevents us, for what so light a breeze of temptation could blow upon us, which does not instantly rush us headlong and crosswise into greed, into pride, desires, dishonour, vengeance and all other evils? What so trivial a little injury can be offered, for which we do not mingle heaven with earth, and disturb the seas from the bottom? From this it is easy to gather how far away we are from ever undergoing death in your cause, if ever the situation were to demand martyrdom, when we are not even willing to cut off those ignoble passions at your command. Wherefore just as indeed we give thanks to your holy name for the sake of those martyrs, so we in turn pray on our own behalf, that you, who have bestowed on them the means of conquering, may assist us in like manner with the good fortune to imitate their pious examples, and that in this way your grace may shine on your church, so that nowhere seduced by the allurements of this world we ourselves should seem more lazy in preserving the victory of your gospel than those men seem energetic in establishing it. Finally, since we have embarked on this history with your assent and will and have put effort and eagerness into this matter, so that the deeds and achievements of your saints, most holy Jesus, might emerge to the glory of your name and public advantage of the church, add now fruit to the labour, and at the same time we earnestly beg you to take for yourself the protection of the history, to whom I commend, dedicate and consecrate with the whole of my body and soul and my strength both the work itself and the whole of myself, whom in so many ways I owe to your mercy, and before whom may every knee fall and every voice and tongue of confession give glory and make it resound throughout all the churches. Amen.

Ad Doctum Lectorem

Translation

John Wade, University of Sheffield

John Foxe to the learned reader.

When I think and turn over in my mind how dangerous and hazardous a thing it is to send out now something in public, which may come to the hands and eyes of many people, especially in these so troubled ways and times, when almost everything is boiling with so many disagreements of people, so many desires of parties, so many fretful individuals, such rigid censures, and mockery of Critics, that it is very difficult to write anything so circumspectly, that it is not seized upon for some grounds for misrepresentation, assuredly they seem very fortunate and lucky who are allowed to hold such a course of life, that living in leisure with dignity, they are able so to enjoy other peoples' labours, as though sitting as idle spectators in the theatre, that they must not in the meantime fear any weariness from doing it or any danger from their work. But a very different way of life has indeed somehow or other exercised me so far, since it has not fallen to my lot to experience, scarce even to taste throughout my life, either that happiness of fortune, in whose embraces I see so many being sweetly cherished, or the delight of leisure, amid the constant fervour and strife of my labours and employment. And yet I complain little about fortune which I have always despised, and indeed I will not say much about my labours, if only those labours may either benefit or please other people as much as they privately wear me down and inconvenience me. Now there is added on top of the pile of my misfortune the fact that I have had to work on that kind of subject matter which, beside the mournful nature of the matters themselves, beside the unpleasantness of the language, beside the difficulty of treatment, which may scarcely receive the elegance of speech, furthermore reduces the author himself to such constraint that he may neither tell lies without injustice to history nor tell the truth without incurring great ill will towards himself and the hatred of many people. For since I have had to engage in such an historical theme of history, as does not relate only to events of earlier years recalled from the distant past, but touches upon this very age of ours, and men of our race who are even now present and alive, rubs on them, and points them out in such a way as has of necessity to be done in this kind of subject, I ask what else I should expect here, except, after I have destroyed my health in vainly wearing myself out, damaged my eyes, hastened the onset of old age, and exhausted my body, finally after all this to expose myself to the hatred, hissings, ill will and censure of many people. In so many adversities as these when nothing will be able to keep me safe, not a Caesar, not Monarchs, not a King, not Queens, not any protection in this world, save only the powerful right hand of the divine Spirit, at the outset therefore and before all I have betaken myself to him as though to a very safe haven, to him I have commended and do commend myself and my book. But then in addition in the same Lord I have wished to appeal to that candor of yours (learned and pious Reader) and that humanity of yours, with which I know that you are endowed from your study of the literae humaniores, so that the vote of your approbation given for these efforts of ours or, if we do not deserve approbation, at least that the kindness of your support may not be lacking: by which if we feel that the this mixture of our history will be approved, we shall the more lightly bear the judgements of the others who are our detractors.

For otherwise I know that there will be no lack of those who in various ways will cause us trouble. Here Momus will have his bites, the informer will have his whispers, nor will the Chicaner be without his tongue and sting to stick into me. This one will detract from the reliability of the narrative. That one will find a lack of skill in the treatment, another of conscientiousness or judgement in investigating the facts. That one will perhaps not like the size of the work or its less than organised or sequential chronology. And if it is none of these, yet in such a great conflict of religion, in such a great variety of judgements, heads and thoughts, where each man favours and promotes his own side, what can be so skilfully or circumspectly explained that it can please everyone? On the contrary, even now I hear that there is also muttering on the part of some people, who say that they are held by long expectation, until this Golden Legend of ours, as they call it, at last be published: if they first wish our tardiness in the matter to be censured, I in truth would like to ask those pretty gentlemen to show themselves more ready in publishing their own things before attacking someone else's slowness.

Then if the volume comes out later than they thought it was going to, let them remember the proverbial instruction that haste should be slow. Even the weary ox is said to fix its step quite firmly. In this matter indeed we have done our level best, we have done, I hope, what our duty demanded, if not sufficiently expeditiously as regards the measure of time, yet certainly we have acted in accordance with our health, and I shall add, moreover, beyond our health. Let me add, moreover, with their indulgence, that we have acted quicker than perhaps will suit those very people, who trifle in this way: certainly we have acted more expeditiously than was appropriate for a work of such great importance and size, which demanded a more painstaking interval of time and care in sorting the materials, since, as those who were witnesses to this, who were aware of the time, and were companions in the labour know, scarcely eighteen full months were given over by us to preparing the material, to collecting and putting together items, to comparing copies, to reading books, to re-writing the things which had been entrusted to manuscript, to correcting type, to arranging the history appropriately and to putting it in order, etc. But if they apply the title of their own Golden Legend to this, because they think this history, after the example of that one, is similarly legendary, and from this by a hateful word prejudice its truth, what am I to reply to them except that they are naively themselves betraying their own false accusation, which they cannot even put off until the publication of the book, making judgements on matters before they know them. In the meantime it is right that they themselves finally are ashamed of that entirely fabulous Golden Legend. And yet they were not ashamed to ridicule the world for so long with those little stories, even threatening those persons with danger, if any should dare to disparage that Legend, that is, their most deceitful rubbish. Wherefore, since nothing can be more impious than to stain the sacrosanct faith of the church with fabrications of this kind and invented nonsense beyond all credibility, yet those most foolish liars measure all other writers from their own abilities, and neither themselves trouble to tell the truth, nor think that others who do tell it should be believed, obviously considering that everything is akin to their own golden dreams. But away, you impudent liar, with your Golden Legend, which all of us know, nor do you yourself not know, to be a book abounding with unnatural monstrosities of lies and most empty inventions â I should not even wish to compare it with the stories of Homer: so far is it removed from having anything in common with the serious and weighty history of the Church. Because those Papists and unchaste monks of yours liked to play the fool in the ridiculous monstrosities of their miracles, do you at once think that no serious authority of history in the church should be allowed? Why should we not, by the same token, pass judgement both concerning the ecclesiastical history of Eusebius and the tripartite history of Sozomen, Socrates and the rest. There are in addition to these certain other miracles on record concerning Saints and Divines, which come closer to this Legend, and yet are not all regarded among us as being apt to be numbered with that Papist Legend, even those which are of very suspect reliability. And yet I have no interest in passing judgement on other writers. Indeed, as far as concerns my martyrology, I would like it to be made manifest to all that I have taken pains to ensure that there should not be anything legendary in the work, or of such a kind as either could have been invented by me, or could not be everywhere very unlike that Golden (I should rather say Leaden) Legend. To this the matter itself and the natural appearance of the history will be able to bear witness, whose whole fabric will be able to seem drawn and conflated from the very archives and registers of bishops, and partly from the martyrs' own letters. Although in this history I do not demand that the individual examples here should be regarded as oracles, yet we have given the effort in accordance with our strength, to the end that if we might not fully achieve it, yet we might approach as close as possible to that old law of history, that we should avoid two things, the particular plagues of history, namely fear and flattery, of which the one always says less and the other always adds more to the narrative than is proper. But it is more honourable that reliability in this matter be built up from the work itself than from my recommendation. For truth itself has its own simple and natural appearance, which it will not be difficult for the reader who is not thick in the head to understand, either from the very character of the utterance, or from the appearance of things or from other characteristics of circumstances. But I am afraid that here also, just as in other things, there may be a place for experience of the old proverb, namely, that liars see to it that not even someone speaking the truth is believed. Since hitherto in the records of martyrological legends and lives of saints, lies, and the most trifling inventions of dreams are read in place of true narratives, it also happens that the rest of the subject matter of the same cast equally comes under the same suspicion, so that now scarcely anything can be read or said in the Church with trust. But since we are unable to remedy this evil, it will be enough to have done what it was in our power to do. What remains let us leave to the care of divine providence. So much then as regards the certainty and the truth of my history: I could indeed wish that it were not even as true and certain as those people want it to seem, but false rather, and very like this which they call their Golden Legend, or the lives of the fathers, or the Festival, or the 'sleep securely', and the rest of these Papist 'babblings of babblers'. But, as it is, the punishments and the dreadful slaughter of these martyrs, which were not invented by us, but inflicted by you, prove this history to be truer and have more witnesses to their truth than those of us who have written the history would wish. Now I come to the other part of the charge, which will perhaps be raised â the Calendar. For I hear that here too I am being criticised not only by silent opinions, but also by open comments from certain papists, to whom it will seem that I have acted unjustly in rejecting and ejecting from the Calendar the divines, martyrs, confessors and virgins of the ancient church, and have put in their place new martyrs and confessors. First, I would wish none of the old divines to have been injured by this action. Nor indeed for the reason that they are inserted in the Calendar are those persons mentioned by me as being among the divines. I have never taken to myself this apotheosis, which Gregory IX undertook so confidently to himself. Moreover, this Calendar does not aim at prescribing some new law for the feast days of the Church. Then much less do I establish the cult of some saint. Already there are more than enough feast days in the world. I wish we could spend Sunday only as the sabbath, properly and as is right. As far as I am concerned, let the papists keep their Calendar. Let the Church also keep its saints, both recent and old, provided they are approved, provided in the meantime that the same are not worshipped, provided that they are truly as saintly as they are old.

But while Jerome did not hesitate to think that even in his own times many were being tortured in the fires of gehenna whom many indiscriminately regarded as saints in the Church, what would Jerome then say here, if he were somehow to have survived and saw this papist dregs of saints with calendars smeared by so many popes, so many bishops and abbots?

Although this Calendar was instituted indeed by me for no other reason than to serve the private use of the reader as merely an Index to mark each martyr's month and year, yet, however, if in the Churches it is also right to record the days of individual months with the personal names of saints, how should I the less be allowed to do in the case of true martyrs what they themselves have permitted with such licence, not to say impudence, in the case of their pseudo-martyrs? If not punishment but cause makes a martyr, why should I not not compare but prefer one Cranmer to six hundred Beckets of Canterbury? What is there seen in Nicholas Ridley which is not to be compared to any divine Nicholas you please? In what way are Latimer, Hooper, Marsh, Simpson and the rest of the Christian martyrs dressed in white to seem inferior to those highest and greatest divines of the Papist Calendar, and not rather even to be preferred to them on many accounts? Meanwhile I harm the cause of no good and holy man (provided he is truly holy), nor do I extinguish his memory or lessen his glory. And if this Calendar is displeasing to anyone, let him remember that it is not being placed in the Churches, but is only being prepared for reading in the home.

But having dismissed these calumnies of my opponents, it is time, learned and sincere Reader, for my address to return to you, since this letter was designed for you, whose judgment in these matters as I value the more, so I also need here your patronage the more. For I know that in this vast accumulation you will find some things at which you will deservedly frown. Nor indeed could it easily have been achieved, especially in a work produced so quickly, that everything would be so completely filed to rule and finger-nail, but that somewhere either the writer becomes drowsy from fatigue, or something escapes the author through negligence, or that from haste it turns out that the dog, which proverbially is used to hurrying too much through eagerness, predictably produces blind puppies. Indeed, in carrying out these things, we must beg rather for your pardon than for your criticism. Wherefore, learned and at the same time most kind Reader, I have been pleased to place this brief ÏÏÎ¿Î¿Î¹Î¼Î±Î¶ÎµÎ¹Î½ (preface) before the beginning of the work, so that, while perusing it, if anything turns up which is not complete in all its numbers, not composed laboriously by the lamp of Cleanthes, not expressed to the standard of the choice ingenuity of theologians, or otherwise less worthy of your most intelligent discernment, you may understand that these things have been published not for your ears, but for mine, that it is for men of the duller crowd, by whom books are more easily read than judged. Or if not even that satisfies your most weighty opinion, let me be allowed to use that law, by which it is always permitted for sleep to steal upon the writer in a great work. But if indeed I gain your willingness in this matter, I shall labour the less over what the rest may clamour, being mindful of the Greek proverb, which I could wish that themselves remember: 'one will blame quicker than one will imitate.'