ABSTRACT
The great folio edition of 1570 was longer and had become a complete history of the Christian faith up to the time of Elizabeth, whom he rather ambiguously chose to address as 'our peaceable Salome'. The inclusion of the ten early persecutions of the Church, as defined by the fifth-century historian Crosius, was intended as a foil to show that the later victims were just as important to the life of the true church as those who had been its foundation. The role of the Apocalypse in the Book of Martyrs is relatively small, but highly significant. John Foxe continued to meditate on the pattern of history revealed in the Bible and at the time of his death was engaged on his Eicasmi seu Meditationes in sacram Apocalypsin. The first nine of the persecutions were the content of the earlier versions of the Book of Martyrs, especially the chronicles of Queen Mary's victims, for which Foxe will always be famous.
