The Nemesis of Faith

The Nemesis of Faith is a novel by English historian and biographer James Anthony Froude, published in 1849. It was the third of his novels and served as an attack on the established church. Due to its content, Froude was compelled to resign his fellowship at Exeter College, Oxford. The work emerged during a period of significant religious and philosophical questioning, influenced by the rediscovery of classical skeptical texts and the doctrinal controversies of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Froude's historical writings, though sometimes criticized for inaccuracies, were driven by a strong partisan belief that the 16th century was a critical period where forces of liberty, represented by the Reformation, contended with those of darkness, embodied by the Roman Catholic Church.123