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Was John Foxe a Millenarian?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Palle J. Olsen
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Extract

That many divines during the middle decades of the seventeenth century were filled with high hopes for the Church's future, and that many of these high hopes were expressed in millenarian terms is by now a commonplace. That, furthermore, this phenomenon did not appear out of the blue and must have had a prehistory would be evident to most. But how far back should one go to find its roots? More than twenty years ago William Lamont argued in his controversial study Godly rule that Elizabethan reformers shared with their more radical brethren of the revolutionary years the hope of ‘godly rule’, a term he never clearly defined but which he nevertheless called millenarian. He singled out John Foxe as the chief spokesman of the ‘godly rule’ idea, and moreover claimed that Foxe was the one who above all ‘made the pursuit of the millennium respectable and orthodox’ in England. The idea that Foxe was a millenarian, even the chief spokesman of millenarianism in Elizabethan England, has not found general approval. In well-documented studies on Foxe, the British apocalyptic tradition, or the English Reformation, scholars such as Bernard Capp, Viggo Norskov Olsen, Richard Bauckham, Katharine R. Firth and Patrick Collinson have all denied that Foxe believed in a this-worldly and future period of peace and ecclesiastical felicity; they have instead drawn attention to his view of end-time persecution, and to his belief in the imminent end of the world.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , October 1994 , pp. 600 - 624
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 Lamont, William, Godly rule: politics and religion 1603–60, London 1969, 7–35, esp. p. 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Godly rule was critically examined by Capp, Bernard in ‘GODLY RULE and English millenarianism’, Past and Present lii (1971), 106–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘The millennium and eschatology in England’, ibid, lvii (1972), 152–62. Lamont responded to the first article with ‘Richard Baxter, the apocalypse and the mad major’, ibid, lv (1972), 68–90. The three articles are reprinted in The intellectual revolution of the seventeenth century, ed. Charles Webster, London 1974, 386–434.

2 Capp, writes, ‘Foxe was not a millenarian, but later writers who were, including Fifth Monarchists, drew heavily upon his work’: The Fifth Monarchy men, London 1972, 26Google Scholar. See idem, ‘Godly rule’, 108, n.1, and Olsen, V. Norskov, John Foxe and the Elizabethan Church Berkeley–London 1973, 99–100Google Scholar. Bauckham, writes to similar effect in Tudor apocalypse, Appleford 1978, 85Google Scholar. Likewise Collinson, Patrick, The birthpangs of Protestant England, London 1988, 14–15Google Scholar. Firth, Katharine R. acknowledges Foxe's progressive view of church history but denies it was millenarian: The apocalyptic tradition in Reformation Britain 1530–1645, Oxford 1979, 252Google Scholar.

3 Hereinafter cited in the footnotes as AM, followed by the year of the edition when relevant.

4 Commentarii rerum in Ecclesia gestarum, maximarumque, per totam Europam, persecutionum, a Vuiclevi temporibus ad hanc usque aetatem discriptio: liber primus, Strasbourg 1554.

5 See Haller, William, Foxe's Book of martyrs and the elect nation, London 1963, 70Google Scholar.

6 Rerum in Ecclesia gestarum quae postremis el periculosis his temporibus euenerunt, maximarumque; per Europam persecutionum, ac sanctorum Dei martyrum, caeterarumque; rerumque; rerum si quae insignioris exempli sint, digesti per regna el nationes commentarij: pars prima, Basel 1559Google Scholar.

7 The substance of bk 1.

8 Foxe did not add a second part dealing with the continental martyrs, but his intentions were realised by Pantaleon, Henry, whose Martyrvm historia, Basel 1563Google Scholar, was presented to the public as ‘pars secunda’ of Foxe's Commentarii.

9 In 1576 and 1583.

10 For example, references to AntiChrist.

11 The locus of the apocalyptic superstructure is chiefly the general introduction to all the editions, beginning with AM 1563, and the introductions and conclusions to bks I–V, beginning with AM 1570.

12 London 1587.

13 For further details on Christus triumphans see Olsen, V. Norskov, John Foxe and the Elizabethan Church, 59–66Google Scholar; Bauckham, , Tudor apocalypse, 75–83Google Scholar; Two Latin comedies by John Foxe the martyrologist, ed. Smith, John Hazel, Ithaca-London 1973, 25–44Google Scholar. Smith's monograph includes the text of the Latin original as well as an English translation.

14 See Two Latin comedies, 233 (3), 251, 253 (15), 305, 307 (47). The pagination of the Latin original is in parenthesis.

15 Ibid. 251, 253 (15).

16 Ibid. 253 (16), 307 (47).

17 Ibid. 253 (16).

18 Ibid. 319 (55). The distinction between a confessed and a concealed AntiChrist, i.e. the idea of a dual AntiChrist, is quite common in the sixteenth century. Foxe retains the idea: AM 1570, 907, 917.

19 Two Latin comedies, 359 (77).

20 Ibid. 355 (74).

21 The title is telling: ‘Actes and Monuments of these latter and perillous dayes, touching matters of the Church, wherein ar comprehended and described the great presecutions and horrible troubles, that haue bene wrought and practised by the Romishe Prelates, speciallye in this Realme of England and Scotlande, from the yeare of our Lorde a thousande, unto the tyme nowe present.’

22 AM 1563, 2.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid. 7, 10. The distinction ‘golden age–brazen age’ is probably borrowed from Bullinger's, commentary on Revelations: A hundred sermons uppon the apocalipse of Jesu Christ, 2nd English edn, London 1573, fo. 272rGoogle Scholar.

25 AM 1563, 10, 11.

26 Foxe, writes ‘the higher thous goest upwarde to the apostles time, the purer thou shalt finde the churche: The lower thous doest descend, ever the more drosse and dregges thou shalt perceyve in the bottome, and especiallye within these laste 500. yeares’: AM 1563, 6Google Scholar.

27 Ibid. 11, and also p. 1.

28 Ibid. 1–11 (introduction).

29 Ibid. 7.

30 Ibid.

31 The reference is probably to the four monarchies of Dan. 1 ii–vii.

32 AM 1563, 7. The unidentified writer may be Nicholas Oresme, who interpreted Ezek. xvi salvation-historically, applying the text to the history of the Church. Oresme distinguishes four periods: (1) The time of birth, identical with the time of martyrdom; (2) The time of prosperity; (3) The time of corruption; (4) The time of correction. In the marginal notes Foxe adds a fifth: the time of ‘the reformation of the church’. See AM 1570, 512, 513.

33 AM 1563, 11.

34 The flourishing age is subdivided, theoretically, into ages of childhood and youth. The former is reckoned from the beginning of the mission to the Gentiles, the latter from the beginning of the persecutions by the Roman authorities.

35 AM 1563, 8.

36 Ibid. 9.

37 Ibid. 8–10.

38 Ibid. (title).

39 AM 1576, 101.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid. 102.

42 Foxe synchronises the 42 months of Rev. xi. 2, xii. 4 and xiii. 5 with the 1,260 days of Rev. xii. 6 and xi. 3, with the 3½ years of Rev. xii. 14, as well as with the 3½ days of Rev. xi. 9. All the numbers, according to Foxe, has the same value, and refer to the same period of time (the 294 years). In other words, the 3½ days are understood to be identical with the 3½ years, the 3½ years with the 1,260 days, and the 1,260 days with the 42 months. The 42 months are then understood as 42 years, and then as 42 sabbaths of years, or as 294 solar years. The apocalyptic days and years all have to be converted via the number 42 to arrive at 294. The interpretation is highly speculative and unique to Foxe.

43 AM 1570, 139, 493, 910.

44 Ibid. 139, 493, 494. See also AM 1576, 102.

45 AM 1570, 493.

46 Ibid. 910.

47 Ibid. 120.

48 See the five-fold schema below.

49 As above. See AM 1570, 120, 139, 493, 910.

50 Ibid. 145–492.

51 Ibid. 493.

52 Ibid. 910.

53 Ibid. 139, 144, 120.

54 See n. 18 above.

55 See AM 1570, 871–916.

56 Ibid. 897.

57 Ibid. 904–14.

58 Ibid. 897, 907, 917. The principal enemies of the Church of Christ, in addition to the Turks, were the Roman emperors before Constantine and the popes. The last two were identified with the two beasts of Rev. xiii.

59 AM 1570, 906, 907.

60 Ibid. 907–10, 917.

61 Ibid. 910.

62 Ibid. 910–12.

63 Ibid. 913. It is not without interest that Foxe's source in this case is Pürstinger's, BertholdOnus ecclesia, Augsburg 1524Google Scholar, a work with a distinctly millenarian view of history.

64 AM 1570, 871–2, and also p. 904.

65 Ibid. 916.

66 Ibid. 1.

67 Ibid. 49.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid. 1.

70 Ibid. 494. See also pp. 492, 780.

71 Ibid. 1.

72 The observant reader will have noticed that Foxe calculated the 42 apocalyptic months turned into 294 years, from AD 34 to 318, a mistake repeated several times (see above p. 607 and AM 1570, 139, 493, 910). He speaks of 300 years from the Passion (AD 34 according to Foxe) to the death of Licinius in AD 324 (AM 1570, 139, 493), and he gets 1,294 years from AD 30 and 34 till AD 1294 (AM 1570, 494, 910), to mention only mistakes in the sections dealing with apocalyptics. The account of Foxe's Sunday morning illumination regarding the calculation of the 42 apocalyptic months, i.e. his need to consult with merchant friends about a simple multiplication, suggests that Foxe had a problem. Firth, , Apocalyptic tradition, 89–90Google Scholar, states with some moderation that Foxe ‘was not proficient in mathematics’.

73 Exact dates are in parenthesis, when so given by Foxe.

74 See AM 1570, 1, 3, 49.

75 Ibid. 494.

76 Ibid. 1.

77 The external state of the Church is best represented by the three-fold schema of suffering-flourishing-suffering (persecution-peace-persecution). ‘Flourishing’ may also relate to the decline and restoration schema of ages three to five.

78 AM 1570, 904. The same schema is used in Foxe's, Sermon preached at the christening of a certaine Jew, London 1578Google Scholar, sigs M6v, M7r, where the schema is related to the Pauline salvation-historical schema of Rom. xi. By means of the schema of Rom. xi Foxe projects a period or salvation-historical state beyond the 1,564 years of the new covenant, providing time for the conversion of the Jews. The period is identical with the time ‘when all Israel shall be saved’: Rom. xi. 26. In this there are millenarian implications.

79 AM 1570, 904, 905.

80 Ibid. sig. A4V.

81 Ibid. 905.

82 Ibid. 1–44. The distinction is made already in AM 1563 (p. 1). The distinction ‘primitive church of Rome - latter church of Rome’, as well as the distinction ‘golden age - brazen age’ (see n. 24 above) were probably borrowed from Bullinger's commentary on Revelation (Hundred sermons, fos 233V, 272r), one Foxe may have read in proof, since the first Latin edition was published by Oporinus in 1557, i.e. at a time when he was working for this printer as a proofreader. In Reformers and Babylon, Toronto 1978, 40Google Scholar, Paul Christianson has argued that John Bale was the chief source of Foxe's apocalyptic view of history in AM 1563. Although Bale, without doubt, is one of Foxe's sources, a much better case could be made for Bullinger as regards AM 1563. Bauckham, , Tudor apocalypse, 73–5Google Scholar, believes Foxe derived the AM 1563 terminus ad quem of the millennium from Bale, but otherwise thinks that Foxe's ‘detailed apocalyptic exegesis’ was not ‘greatly indebted to Bale’.

83 AM 1570, 3.

84 Ibid.

85 Ibid. sig A3v .

86 The pairs invisible - visible, and true - false are not identical. To Foxe the true as well as the false Church may be visible, but the true one is for a time nearly invisible, until restored in the Reformation Churches.

87 See also the title page, where the two Churches are pictured, the true Church, or ‘the image of the persecuted Church’, on the left hand; the false Church, or ‘the image of the persecuting Church’, on the right. The symbolism may have been inspired by Bale's, John commentary on the Revelation, The image of both Churches, London 1547Google Scholar (first complete edition).

88 AM 1570, sig. A3r.

89 Ibid.

90 Foxe writes ‘Now for somuch as the true Church of God goeth not lightly alone, but is accompanied with some other Church or Chappell of the devill to deface and maligne the same, necessary it is therefore, the difference betwene them to be sene, and the descent of the right Church to be described from the Apostles time. Which hetherto in most part of histories hath beene lacking, partly for feare, that men durst not: partly for ignoraunce that men could not discerne rightly betwene the one and the other’: ibid.

91 Ibid. 145. See also pp. 2–4, 780 and sig. A4r+v. Later appeals to the Church of England's mythical past have invariably the same purpose, namely, to ‘prove’ its independence from the Church of Rome, which was another way of saying it was an authentic, apostolic church. The origin of the myth is uncertain and Foxe's appeal to Gildas is in this case mistaken.

92 Jewel, Joh n, A defence of the apologie of the Churche of Englande, London 1567Google Scholar.

93 AM 1576, 101, 102.

94 For instance, he describes the third period in the longer version of the five-fold schema of AM 1570 thus: ‘Thirdly, of the declining or backeslyding time of the Churche, which comprehendeth over 300. yeares, until the loosing out of Sathan, which was about the thousand yeare after Christ’: AM 1570, 1. In AM 1576 the passage is revised to read, ‘Thirdly, of the declinyng or backeslidyng tyme of the Churche, which comprehendeth other 300. yeares, until the loosing out of Sathan, whiche was about the thousand yeare after the ceasing of persecution [i.e. in AD 1300]: AM 1576, 1. But this is illogical since it is contradicted by the schema itself. See a similar revision of the two-fold schema: ibid. 3.

95 AM 1570, 872, 916.

96 Ibid. 494.

97 Ibid. sigs A2r, B3r, 905.

98 See, for instance, Bauckham, , Tudor apocalypse, 85, 222Google Scholar; Collinson, , Birthpangs, 14–15Google Scholar. See also n. 2 above.

99 Haller, , Foxe's Book of martyrs, 139Google Scholar.

100 Ibid. 80. See also p. 20, and the chapter on ‘the elect nation’, pp. 224–50.

101 Ibid. 80. See also pp. 20, 62 and the chapter on ‘the godly queen’, pp. 82–109.

102 Ibid. 139.

103 Ibid. 224–50.

104 Lamont, , Godly rule, 23, 67Google Scholar.

105 Ibid. 17–36, at pp. 25, 32, 33.

106 Ibid. 25, 26, 78 and passim.

107 Ibid. 25.

108 Ibid. 19, 25, 95.

109 Ibid.

110 Ibid. 9, 25.

111 Ibid. 33 and passim.

112 Ibid. 13, 19, 31, 97, 106–7 and passim.

113 See n. 2 above.

114 Past and Present lii (1971), 107; lvii (1972), 156–7.

115 Lamont, , Godly rule, 9Google Scholar.

116 Ibid. 25.

117 For example, the idea of the destruction of AntiChrist.

118 See Eicasmi, 107, 121–3, 146–7, 205–6.

119 Ibid. 148.

120 See Olsen, , John Foxe, 99Google Scholar, where the seventh vial is correlated with the seventh trumpet, and understood in terms of the Final Judgement.

121 Eicasmi, 387.

122 The text reads, ‘Postremo, ut rem verbo conficiamus quum in calce praecedentis capitis, nemo introire poterat in templum; donee consumarentur septem plagae semtem Angelorum, facile hinc constat, post septem has finitas phiales, septem Angelorum, nullam iracundiam, nullas plagas superesse deinceps, quae sanctos dei a libero ingressu templi dei impediat, aut tranquillitatem eorum perturbet’: ibid. 388.

123 Olsen, , John Foxe, 93–100Google Scholar; Bauckham, , Tudor apocalypse, 85–8Google Scholar and passim; Firth, , Apocalyptic tradition, 87–106Google Scholar.

124 See ‘Refreshment of the saints: the time after AntiChrist as a station for earthly progress in medieval thought’, Traditio xxxii (1976), 97–144Google Scholar.

125 Notably in An English fourteenth-century apocalypse version with a prose commentary, ed. Fridner, Elis, Lund 1961, 60, 88–9Google Scholar; in Purvey, John, Commentarius in apocalypsin, Wittenberg 1528Google Scholar, fos 75v–6r, 105r; in the Lollard, tract The lanterne of light, ed. Swineburn, Lillian M. (Early English Text Society cli), London 1917, 16–17, 21–2Google Scholar; and possibly also in Langland's, William poem Piers the Plowman, B text, passus III, 282–349Google Scholar. Foxe was acquainted with all these texts. The copy of the middle English apocalypse version with a commentary in the Trinity College Library, Dublin, is a sixteenth-century transcript, apparently made by Foxe himself.

126 See, for instance, Forbes, Patrick, An exqvisite commentarie, London 1613, 89, 99, 169Google Scholar; Bernard, Richard, A key of knowledge, London 1617, 323–41Google Scholar; Mason, Thomas, A revelation of the revelation, London 1619, 94–101Google Scholar; Mayer, John, Ecclesiastica interpretatio, London 1627, 380–2Google Scholar.

127 Lamont, , Godly rule, 25Google Scholar.