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JULY

 “My hair is gray—but not with years;
My limbs are bowed--though not with toil,
For they have been a Dungeon’s spoil.”

-John Bunyan-
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1, 69 --Egypt. Upon the death of Nero, Titus Flavius Vespasian seizes control of the army and becomes the next Roman Emperor. His son, Titus, will serve as co-regent with his father. Vespasian has laid siege to Jerusalem, and will leave his son, Titus, in charge while he subdues the Italian peninsula. Jerusalem will fall to Titus next year.
     Emperor Vespasian will leave behind him the Coliseum.

1, 1523 --Belgium. The Inquisition in the Low Countries has scoured the country searching everywhere for the young Augustins who had escaped the persecution at Antwerp. Esch, Voes and Lambert are at last discovered, chained and carried here to Brussels. Egmondanus, Hochstratten, and some other Inquisitors have summoned them to appear before them.
     Hochstratten has asked, “Do you retract your assertion that the priest has no power to pardon sins, and that pardon belongs to God only?”
     Esch and Voes firmly declare, “We recant nothing; we will not abjure the Word of God; we will sooner die for the faith!”
     But Lambert has been silent: he is afraid to die. “I ask four days.” He has been taken back to prison.
      The sacerdotal consecration has been formally withdrawn from Esch and Voes, and they have been handed over to the Council of the Regent of the Low Countries, who, in turn, has handed them over to the executioner in handcuffs. Hochstratten and three other inquisitors have accompanied them to the scaffold. The young martyrs eyeing it with fortitude, piety and youthfulness draw tears even from the Inquisitors.
     Admonished once again to deny their faith, they respond, “We believe in the Christian Church; but not in your Church.”
     In hope that the fear of death will intimidate them, half an hour is allowed to elapse, but during that time the youths sing Psalms and occasionally interrupt to say, “We wish to die for the name of Jesus Christ.”
     “Be converted, be converted,” the Inquisitors exclaim, “or you will die in the name of the Devil.” “No!” the youths reply, “we will die as Christians for the truth of the Gospel.”
     The fire is lit, and as the flame ascends, one of them is heard to say, “I feel as if reclining on a bed of roses.” With loud voices, they exclaim, “0 Domine Jesu, Fill David, miserere nostri!”—“Lord Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” and together they begin repeating the creed. Before they die, the flames burn the cords that bind them to the stake. One of them takes advantage of this liberty and throws himself on his knees, thus worshipping his Master.
     Thus the first martyrs of the Reformation die.

1, 1584 --England. The first Statute of Queen Elizabeth, afterwards known as the “First of Elizabeth”, has granted the Queen authority to erect a commission for ecclesiastical causes.
     Today, forty-four commissioners are selected, twelve of whom are bishops, and are given arbitrary powers to search after heretical opinions, and seditious books, absentees from the Church of England, errors, heresies, and schisms. The queen is ready to interpret any freedom in worship as treasonable being a denial of her supremacy, or as the felony of sedition.
     The Puritan, Thomas Cartwright agrees with her powers and teaches, “Heretics ought to be put to death now; that upon repentance there ought not to follow any pardon of death; that the magistrates which punish murder and are loose in punishing the breaches of the First Table, begin at the wrong end.”

 

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