Of this number was the unfortunate priest of Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine,
called Nicholas Anthony; he was known by no other name. After he had
received what is called "the four minors" in Lorraine, the Calvinistic
preacher Ferri, happening to go to Pont-à-Mousson, raised in his mind
very serious scruples, and persuaded him that the four minors were the
mark of the beast. Anthony, driven almost to distraction by the thought
of carrying about him the mark of the beast, had it immediately effaced
by Ferri, embraced the Protestant religion, and became a minister at
Geneva about the year 1630.
With a head full of rabbinical learning, he thought that if the
Protestants were right in reference to the Papists, the Jews were much
more so in reference to all the different sects of Christianity
whatever. From the village of Divonne, where he was pastor, he went to
be received as a Jew at Venice, together with a young apprentice in
theology whom he had persuaded to adopt his own principles, but who
afterwards abandoned him, not experiencing any call to martyrdom.
At first the minister, Nicholas Anthony, abstained from uttering the
name of Jesus Christ in his sermons and prayers; in a short time,
however, becoming animated and emboldened by the example of the Jewish
saints, who confidently professed Judaism before the princes of Tyre and
Babylon, he travelled barefooted to Geneva, to confess before the judges
and magistrates that there is only one religion upon earth, because
there is only one God; that that religion is the Jewish; that it is
absolutely necessary to become circumcised; and that it is a horrible
crime to eat bacon and blood pudding. He pathetically exhorted all the
people of Geneva, who crowded to hear him, no longer to continue
children of Belial, but to become good Jews, in order to deserve the
kingdom of heaven. He was apprehended, and put in chains.