The Martyrologies and Calendars the Heretics Produced in England
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Book 2, chapter 37 The Martyrologies and Calendars the Heretics Produced in England The devil is the ape of God, seeking to usurp the honor and glory due the divine majesty in every way he can: in shrines, altars, sacrifices, offerings, and all that pertains to sacred worship, and to that highest reverence (called latria) owed to God alone,1 the evil one has tried to imitate God, that he might be acknowledged and served as God, deceiving countless men and instructing them to adore stone, and clay, and silver, and gold, and the gods and works of their hands,2 and him therein, as he did in ancient times, and as the blind pagans do even in our own day. In the same way, the heretics, the sons of the demon,3 little vipers who emerge from the entrails of a viper, strive to be apes of the Catholics—neither in faith nor in sanctity, but only in usurping the honor owed to them, mimicking in their hypocritical synagogues what the Catholic Church represents in the congregation of the faithful. For this reason, seeing that the Catholic Church has its saints and martyrs, which it reveres as such and honors on their days, to the glory of the saints and the imitation and emulation of their deeds, the heretics have chosen to celebrate as saints and regard as martyrs those heretics who have been justly burned, whether for their crimes or4 in the name of our faith. The Arian Bishop Georgius died for his crimes in Alexandria, and was venerated and honored as a martyr by the other Arian heretics, as Ammianus Marcellinus says;5 the Donatist Salvius was killed by other heretics—likewise Donatists, but of another, contrary sect— and those of his sect built a temple to him, and esteemed and revered him as martyr, as Saint Augustine writes.6 And so, following the example of their 1 Beginning with Augustine, theologians had distinguished between latria, the worship due only to God, and dulia, the reverence that might be accorded the saints. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 491. 2 Isa. 2:8; Jer. 1:16; Mic. 5:12; Rev. 9:20. 3 John 8:44; 1 John 3:10. 4 This phrase is added in the 1595 edition. 5 In the margin: “Book 22.” Ammianus Marcellinus, History, 22.11. 6 The citations of Arian and Donatist saints are added in the 1595 edition. In the margin: “Contra Parmeniani, Book 3, last chapter [6], and Contra Cresconium, Book 4, Chapters 48 and 49.” © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/97890043�3964_093 <UN> 496 Book 2, chapter 37 fellow heretics,7 in England they produce new martyrologies and calendars, erasing the ancient martyrs, confessors, and virgins of the Catholic Church (for these they disdain), and canonizing degenerate men, hateful for every sort of heresy and wickedness, whom they have placed in their calendars, marking their days with large, colored letters. In this way, they thrust forth as confessors Henry viii, Edward vi, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Martin Luther, Peter Martyr, and others; Wycliffe,8 Jan Hus, Cran- mer, and other pestilential heretics who died at the stake, they call martyrs; in truth, neither in their synagogues nor in their calendars is there a single virgin, for never have they produced any.9 But no further proof is needed to perceive what they are, save seeing that they honor and regard as saints these nefarious men, of such foul and abominable lives. Just as the devil, however much as he tries to imitate God and seize by deception the honor due him alone, is not God, nor can be God, but only the ape of God, thus, he who the heretic regards and reveres as a martyr cannot be anything but the mimic and shadow of a martyr. For, as the glorious Doctor, Saint Augustine, says most solemnly, it is not the pain, but the cause, that makes the martyr.10 And therefore one saintly bishop, imprisoned for being a Catholic and refusing to submit to the Arian Emperor Constantius, wrote to him from his cell, Interest ex qua causa, non ex quo pendeam stipite—It matters not that I hang from one pole or another, what matters is the cause for which I die.11 For if this were not so, we would say 7 This phrase is added in the 1595 edition, in keeping with the insertion of the Arian and Donatist examples. Ribadeneyra also changes the precise wording of the sentence’s opening—“Pues” replacing “Y para esto”—but the sense remains the same. 8 The English theologian John Wycliffe (c.1331–84) was generally regarded as the inspiration for the loose network of heterodox communities and individuals in England known as the Lollards. It has been argued, both by early modern Protestants and by modern schol- ars, that Wycliffe’s thought and the Lollard movement were forerunners of the English Reformation. See Deane, Medieval Heresy and Inquisition, 217–46. 9 John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, which established a genealogy for Protestant martyr- dom reaching back through the Middle Ages to the early church and initially promoted a controversial calendar of new observances commemorating these martyrs. 10 This sentiment appears at least three times in Augustine of Hippo’s oeuvre: Contra Cresco- nium, Chapter 47; Letters 204.4; Exposition of the Psalms, 34.ii. 13. Cf. Contra epistulam Parmeniani libri tres, 3.6. This idea of Augustine’s was universally cited by early modern Christians of every sect and confession to defend their own martyrs and denigrate those of others. Gregory, Salvation at Stake, 338. 11 Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari (d. c.370), a fierce opponent of Arianism, who fell afoul of Constantius ii. Although his Spanish translation is somewhat elaborated, Ribadeneyra quotes the Latin of Lucifer’s treatise Moriendum esse pro dei filio (c.360) to the letter: “It matters for what cause, not from what pole I hang [interest ex qua causa, non ex quo <UN>.