Fox's Book of Martyrs Book

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: seventy. He was a distant relation of the Redeemei ; and was a candidate, together with Matthias, for the apostle- ship, left vacant by Judas Iscariot. He was, during his life, a very zealous preacher of the gospel, and having suffered many insults from the Jews, was at length put to death by the Pagans in Judea. Ananias, bishop of Damascus, is celebrated in scripture for being the person who cured St. Paul of his blindness, occasioned by |he brightness of the vision at the time of his conversion. He was one of the seventy disciples, and was martyred in the city of Damascus. After ' his death, a Christian church was erected over the place of his burial, which is now converted into a Turkish Mosque. Persecution under Domitiari. The Emperor Domitian was naturally cruel, and aftei having slain his brother, he raised a persecution against the Christians. He commanded all the lineage of David to be slain ; lioping, by this means, to stop the progress of Christ's kingdom, which he was taught to consider as a temporal kingdom. Among the numerous martyrs who suffered during his persecution, was Simon, bishop of Jerusalem, who was crucified. St. John, who was cast into a caldron of oil, and afterward banished to the island of Patmos; and Flavia, the daughter of a Roman Senator, who was banished to Pontus. A law, was also enacted, that no Christians once brought before the tribunal should be exempted from punishment, without renouncing their religion. During this reign, there were a variety of tales invented, for the purpose of injuring the reputation of the Christians. Among other things they were accused of meeting together for the grossest immorality, of murdering their children, and even of eating them. They were also accused of being rebellious, and opposed to the Roman ...Read More