Every Roman Catholic should read “The Fox’s Book of Martyrs”
No thanks, I’m very selective in my fiction reading list.
John Foxe’s “Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church” colloquially known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, is a collection of gross exaggeration, and ridiculous slander, as one would expect to have been published by the Taliban, or the Iranian Security Council. For instance, Foxe claims hundreds of thousands of martyrs in “the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre,” claiming blood poured through the streets of Paris, flowing as thick as the River Seine. Foxe presumed that the entire disappearance of the Huguenots was the result of murder. Modern historians, however, estimate the number of dead being “only” about 3,000, the remainder having reverted to Catholicism, or, like my ancestors, fled. That he is known as a historian shows only the pathetic state of American education, since his book resorts to childish name-calling, such as “dogs,” “apes,” etc.