John Foxe and the Jews*

Abstract

It is little known that John Foxes Book of Martyrs included stories of Jews. Contradictory and complex, Foxes writings on Jews show how a powerful writer conceived of the place of Jews in a newly self-concious, Protestant English national identity amidst conflicting currents of theology, race, and politics. The ideologies of Reforming Protestantism supplied the explicit political frameworks through which age-old stereotypes about the cultural or racial other could be expressed. Our understanding of early modern philo-judaism and toleration should be revised accordingly.