''Pseudo-Martyr'' is a 1610 polemical prose tract in English by

John Donne John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's ...

. It contributed to the religious pamphlet war of the time, and was Donne's first appearance in print. It argued that English

Roman Catholics The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

should take the

Oath of Allegiance of James I of England The Oath of Allegiance of 1606 was an oath requiring English Catholics to swear allegiance to James I over the Pope. It was adopted by Parliament the year after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 (see Popish Recusants Act 1605). The oath was proclaimed l ...

. It was printed by

William Stansby William Stansby (1572–1638) was a London printer and publisher of the Jacobean and Caroline eras, working under his own name from 1610. One of the most prolific printers of his time, Stansby is best remembered for publishing the landmark first ...

for

Walter Burre Walter Burre ( fl. 1597 – 1622) was a London bookseller and publisher of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, best remembered for publishing several key texts in English Renaissance drama. Burre was made a "freeman" of the Stationers Compa ...

Background

Donne had converted from Catholicism, but had not moved decisively into the Protestant camp. From 1604 he became involved in controversial theology as an onlooker, assisting his friend Thomas Morton in a reply to

James Anderton Sir Cyril James Anderton (24 May 1932 – 5 May 2022) was a British police officer who served as chief constable of Greater Manchester from 1976 to 1991. Early life and career Born and brought up in a coal mining family in Wigan, Lancashire, ...

, commissioned by

Richard Bancroft Richard Bancroft (1544 – 2 November 1610) was an English churchman, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1604 to 1610 and "chief overseer" of the King James Bible. Life Bancroft was born in September 1544 at Farnworth, now part of Widnes, Che ...

The content of ''Pseudo-Martyr''

Donne entered directly into one of the major debates of the period, supporting

Sir Edward Coke ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as p ...

against the Jesuit Robert Parsons. Coke in ''Fift Part of the Reports'' (1606) had made a historical argument on the powers of the King of England in church matters. Donne characterised the English mission, of Catholic priests trained to convert Protestants and sustain English Catholics, as "enemies to the dignity of all princes", and seditious because of the theories of temporal power of the Pope supported particularly by the Jesuits. Donne used a comparison with the

Circumcellions The Circumcellions or Agonistici (as called by Donatists) were bands of Roman Christian radicals in North Africa in the early to mid-4th century.. They were considered heretical by the Catholic Church. They were initially concerned with remedyin ...

to denigrate Jesuit attitudes to

martyrdom A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external ...

. A more subtle side to the argument is that it recognised that the oath had closed down the option of

passive obedience Passive obedience is a religious and political doctrine, which states that people have a moral duty to obey the law, in particular accepting punishment as part of this obedience. George Berkeley The most notable publication describing this doctr ...

to the king. Donne threw the onus of swearing onto individual

conscience Conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's moral philosophy or value system. Conscience stands in contrast to elicited emotion or thought due to associations based on immediate sens ...

, discounting both arguments from the state and the authority of

casuistry In ethics, casuistry ( ) is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and ju ...

. The only acceptable basis was scripture and knowledge of nature, the duty of obedience being considered in the light of

natural law Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacte ...

Intention and reception

''Pseudo-Martyr'' launched Donne into a career as a clergyman of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

, one of the reasons he wrote it. He also aimed it at English Catholics. The work influenced

Thomas James Thomas James (c. 1573 – August 1629) was an English librarian and Anglican clergyman, the first librarian of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Life He was born about 1573 at Newport, Isle of Wight. In 1586 he was admitted a scholar of Winchest ...

, who praised it.Johann P. Somerville, ''John Donne the Controversialist: The Poet as Political Thinker'', p. 94, in David Colclough (editor), ''John Donne's Professional Lives'' (2003)
Google Books

Background

The content of ''Pseudo-Martyr''

Intention and reception

Notes

Further reading