Knowing my love of history in general and Church history in particular, my incredibly awesome wife got me Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Since I almost always have at least one book going, I’m just now getting around to reading it. I’m only 40 pages or so into the book, but to say that it has been challenging doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
Two passages that I found particularly challenging concern the apostle Andrew (namesake of my oldest boy) and Ignatius, one of the Church Fathers. On Andrew, Foxe wrote (from W. Grinton Berry’s edition):
Andrew, going toward the place, and seeing afar off the cross prepared, did change neither countenance nor colour, neither did his blood shrink, neither did he fail in his speech, his body fainted not, neither was his mind molested, nor did his understanding fail him, as it is the manner of men to do, but out of the abundance of his heart his mouth did speak, and fervent charity did appear in his words as kindled sparks; he said, ‘O cross, most welcome and long looked for! with a willing mind, joyfully and desirously, I come to thee, being the scholar of Him which did hang on thee: beacause I have always been thy lover, and have coveted to embrace thee.’
On Ignatius, Foxe wrote:
Accordingly, having come from Smyrna, he wrote to the church at Rome, exhorting them not to use means for his deliverance from martyrdom, lest they should depreive him of that which he most longed and hoped for. ‘Now I begin to be a disciple. I care for nothing, of visible or invisible things, so that I may but win Christ. let fire and the cross, let the companies of wild beasts, let breaking of bones and tearing of linbs, let the grinding of the whole body, and all the malice of the devil, come upon me; be it so, only may I win Christ Jesus!’
I don’t know how I would react in such situations. I’m pretty sure I would totally cave, and it would only be through the sustaining hand of the Holy Spirit that I would be able to endure as nobly as these two great men of God did. I pray that I’m never in that situation, but, if I am, I pray that the Spirit moves unhindered.
This is a great read for anyone with a heart for the Lord. And a strong stomach.