A67922:855
Acts and monuments of matters most special and memorable, happening in the Church. [vol.…Actes and monuments of matters most speciall and memorable, happenyng in the Church. [vol.…
Acts and monuments of matters most special and memorable, happening in the Church. [vol. 1] with an universal history of the same, wherein is set forth at large the whole race and course of the Church, from the primitive age to these latter times of ours, with the bloody times, horrible troubles, and great persecutions against the true martyrs of Christ, sought and wrought as well by heathen emperors, as now lately practised by Romish prelates, especially in this realm of England and Scotland. Newly revised and recognised, partly also augmented, and now the fourth time again published and recommended to the studious reader, by the author (through the help of Christ our Lord) John Fox, which desireth thee good reader to help him with thy prayer.Actes and monuments of matters most speciall and memorable, happenyng in the Church. [vol. 1] with an vniuersall history of the same, wherein is set forth at large the whole race and course of the Church, from the primitiue age to these latter tymes of ours, with the bloudy times, horrible troubles, and great persecutions agaynst the true martyrs of Christ, sought and wrought as well by heathen emperours, as nowe lately practised by Romish prelates, especially in this realme of England and Scotland. Newly reuised and recognised, partly also augmented, and now the fourth time agayne published and recommended to the studious reader, by the author (through the helpe of Christ our Lord) Iohn Foxe, which desireth thee good reader to helpe him with thy prayer.
London: printed by John Daye, 1583London: printed by Iohn Daye, 1583
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
In this persecution,1 among many other Saints the blessed Apostle Peter was condemned to death, and crucified as some do write, at Rome, albeit othersome, and not without cause do doubt thereof, concerning whose life and history, because it is sufficiently described in the text of the Gospel, and in the Acts of S. Luke. chap. 4.5. 12. I need not here to make any great repetition thereof. As touching the cause and manner of his death, divers there be,2 which make relation, as Hierome, Egesippus, Eusebius, Obadiah, and other: although they do not all precisely agree in the time. The words of Hierome be these: Simon Peter the son of Jona, of the province of Galilee, and of the Town of Bethsaida, the brother of Andrew. &c. After he had been Bishop of the Church of Antioch, and had preached to the dispersion of them that believed, of the Circumcision in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia in the second year of Claudius, the Emperor, (which was about the year of our Lord. 44.) came to Rome, to withstand Simon Magus, and there kept the priestly chair, the space of 325. years, until the last year of the foresaid Nero, which was the 14. year of his reign, of whom he was crucified, his head being down, and his feet upward, himself so requiring, because he was (he said) unworthy to be crucified after the same form and manner, as the Lord was. &c. Egesippus, prosecuting this matter something more at large, and Obadiah, also, (if any authority is to be given to his book, who following not only the sense, but also the very form of words of Egesippus in this History, seemeth to be extracted out of him, and of other authors) saith, that Simon Magus being then a great man with Nero, and his president and keeper, of his life, was required upon a time to be present at the raising up of a certain noble young man in Rome,4 of Neros kindred, lately departed. Whereas Peter also was desired to come to the reviving of the said personage. But when Magus in the presence of Peter could not do it: Then Peter calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus, did raise him up, and restored him to his mother, whereby the estimation of Simon Magus, began greatly to decay, and to be detested in Rome. Not long after the said Magus threatened the Romans, that he would leave the City and in their light fly away from them into heaven.