Church History Books 1–9 (trans.) 3

On the undoubted and the suspect divine Scriptures. On Cerinthus, leader of a depraved religion. On those apostles who did not spurn the rights of marriage. How Symeon, bishop of Jerusalem, suffered. How Trajan forbade Christians to be sought out. That Euarestus governed the Roman church fourth. That Justus presided third over Jerusalem. On the evangelists who were eminent at that time. On the epistle of Clement and his other writings. [The account begins:] ...of our Lord and Savior, and the rest of the disciples, are sent out to preach the word of God throughout each and every province of the whole earth.

'Thomas, as has been handed down to us, obtained by lot the Parthians; Matthew, Ethiopia'... [Andrew is found] going about preaching to Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia and the rest of the neighboring provinces, at least to the Jews; and [Peter], at the last, having stayed in the city of Rome, where he was also crucified with his head plunged downward, [and John]... completed the gospel of Christ, and at the last underwent martyrdom under Nero. These few things Origen thus left, in order, in the third book of his Expositions of Genesis. For there is one epistle of his [Peter], concerning which no one at all has doubted. But concerning the second, it is uncertain to many; yet among very many it too is received to be read.

But that little book which is called the Acts of Peter, and that which is named the Gospel bearing his name, and likewise what is called his Preaching or his Revelation, are by no means held among the canonical Scriptures; nor indeed has any of the old writers used their testimonies... When we mention the ecclesiastical writers, we shall of necessity also set forth which books of the Scriptures ought to be held authoritative, and whose authority is less to be followed. Meanwhile the first epistle of Peter, as we said, has been received by all the ancients. Of Paul, too, the [fourteen epistles are] manifest... I know that among the Latins there is doubt concerning the epistle written to the Hebrews. But concerning it also, what each of the old writers thought, we shall set forth in due time.

And the little book of Hermas, which is called the Shepherd—of which Paul makes mention in his epistles—is by very many not [received]... [by it beginners] are imbued with instructions unto faith. Whence it is read in some churches, and many of the old writers have made use of its testimonies. Let these things, meanwhile, be premised by us concerning the trustworthiness of the divine books. ...that [Peter] soon preached the gospel to the Gentiles is proved from his own words and from what Luke writes in the Acts. And Peter also designates in his own words in which provinces he preached Christ to those who are of the circumcision, in that letter which he writes to those who are in the dispersion—the Hebrews, without doubt. For they themselves...

...are called the dispersed, as those driven from their own dwellings and set in the dispersion, as he himself says, of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. Of these, if any, steadfast in the faith and zealous... received [the churches which the apostles] had founded—whose names it is not easy to set forth one by one. Yet from the words of the apostle Paul we can gather that there were very many whom he names now as helpers, now as fellow-soldiers, now even as fellow-captives and fellow-laborers in the gospel and companions. He also had sharers in the preaching, as he mentions Timothy and Titus, of whom the one is set by him as bishop in Ephesus, the other for the ordaining of churches in Crete.

But Luke himself was by race an Antiochene, by art a physician, and was a companion of Paul and an associate and close friend of the other apostles. He therefore... whom he had received... set forth for us two medicinal books, by which not bodies but souls are healed—namely, the gospel, in which he thus prefaces: 'even as they delivered them to us,' he says, 'who from the beginning were themselves eyewitnesses and ministers of the word of God, whom I too followed from the beginning'—and the Acts of the Apostles, which he had perceived not now by hearing, but had beheld with his own eyes. They relate, moreover, that he wrote his gospel from the mouth of Paul, and that it is this which the apostle is wont to call his own gospel, when he says: 'according to my gospel.'

As also... of Paul's companions, Crescens is said to have set out for Gaul, while Linus and Clement presided over the church in the city of Rome, who are attested by Paul himself to have been his companions and helpers. And Dionysius the Areopagite at Athens, whom Luke describes as the first [convert set over the church by Paul], is agreed to have received the priesthood. But now, meanwhile, [let us return] to the order of the history. ...[Vespasian took up] the principate—Galba and Otho having held the principate for a year and six months—at the time when he was in readiness for the war which he had directed against the Jews, where by that very army with which he was assaulting Judaea he was raised to the empire. And, hastening at once to Rome, he lays upon his son Titus the charge of the war and of the siege of Jerusalem.

But after the ascension of our Lord and Savior, the Jews—whether for the guilt committed against him, or for the persecution against the apostles and the slaying of Stephen, and also the beheading of the apostle James, and no less against James the brother of the Lord, called the Just, and for the crime committed, and for all the rest whom, on account of the faith of Christ, they had encompassed with snares, deceits, and every fraud of wickedness—for all these evils, I say, punishments were divinely demanded back of them. And the apostles indeed, first put to flight by them and scattered through every place, as we said above, went forth in the power of Christ, who had commanded them, saying: 'Go, baptize all nations in my name.'

But the church which had been gathered together at Jerusalem, having received an answer from God, is bidden to migrate and to cross over to a certain town called Pella, beyond the Jordan; so that, the holy and just men being taken away from the city, there might be room for the heavenly vengeance to be taken both upon the sacrilegious city and upon the impious people, through the destruction of the fatherland and its overthrow.

With how great evils, therefore, the whole nation was then punished; and how the very land of Judaea was laid waste by war, famine, fire, and slaughter; how many thousands of the people, fathers together with wives and little children, were butchered without number and without distinction; what sieges too there were of the various cities, and especially how great a devastation and how great a slaughter of divers deaths there was of the magnificent and most renowned city of Jerusalem itself; what was the manner of the wars in each particular; and how, according to what the prophets had foretold, the abomination of desolation was set up in that once most famous temple of God; and how at last fire ravaged and flame consumed all things—if anyone wishes to know these things more fully, let him read again the histories of Josephus.

But we [take] from these only what pertains to the explanation... [the multitudes] which a certain deadly hand, compelling them, had brought together, whom he says to have been three million men—by the just judgment of God, that is, this time being chosen for vengeance, so that those who in the days of the Passover [had crucified] their Savior and saving Christ... [were shut up], the whole multitude enclosed as if in a single prison for a deadly punishment. I will pass over recounting what was inflicted upon them either by slaughter of the sword or by other engines of war; only those things which came about through the destruction of dire famine [will I tell], that they may understand how great a guilt it is to dare anything against Christ, and how... let the book of the histories be set forth in the midst, from which all their sorrowful tragedy [may be known].

For if they had remained in the city, they were put to death on the pretext of their property—a charge being brought against them, as though they were plotting to desert. But the necessity of famine heightened the arrogance of the factious, and both grew together at once, starvation with recklessness. Publicly, indeed, grain was nowhere at all to be had; but the city's plunderers, rushing in, ransacked the houses, and if they found any, they exacted punishment as from men who had deceived them; but if they found none, they nonetheless tortured them as men who had hidden it too secretly and carefully.

They took it as a sure sign that people had hidden food from the very fact that they still seemed to live and subsist in body, as though such folk must certainly already have perished, unless they were somewhere concealing hidden provisions. If, indeed, they saw any wasting away with leanness, these they passed by with pardon, thinking it superfluous to kill men whom famine would shortly consume. Many, however, secretly bought with their whole fortune a single measure — of wheat, if they were rich; of barley, if they were of lower means — and, shutting themselves in whatever innermost recesses of the house they could, some ate the grain not even made into loaves, while others cooked it only so far as either necessity or fear allowed.

No one waited for a table to be laid; instead, snatching their food half-burnt from the very fire, they devoured what was their own as though it were stolen. Pitiable was the sight of that wretched food, when all the stronger seized whatever was found, while for the weaker nothing remained but grief and tears. And although famine surpasses all the bitterness of misfortune, yet nothing so undermines and overturns a man as it does his sense of shame. For whatever, when circumstances are secure, is held worthy of modesty, in such extremity is despised. In short, wives snatched food from the hands of their husbands, children from their parents, and — what is more wretched still — mothers from the very hands and mouths of their own little ones.

And while their dearest children, held in their arms and set before their faces, wasted away, no one refrained from tearing the scanty supports of life from their very teeth. Nor indeed were even these wretched ones spared. Anyone, as soon as he saw a man's doors shut, took it for a sign that those within were eating; and at once, breaking down the despised doors, he rushed in headlong and, wringing the food, so to speak, from their very throats, reclaimed whatever had perhaps already been swallowed. Old men were beaten if they tried to defend their food; women too were dragged by their disheveled hair as they strove to hide whatever had chanced to be caught in their hands.

There was no reverence for the aged on account of their grey hairs, no pity toward little children; but the little ones who clung to a scanty fragment of bread they dashed to the ground, still hanging from the very morsel to which they had clung. But against any who by consuming his food had forestalled the plunderers they raged still more cruelly, and devised dreadful tortures, stopping up in the wretched the natural passages of digestion. Others drove very sharp stakes through their private parts — I shudder to relate what was done — and by such means forced the wretched to confess where a single loaf or a cupful of flour lay hidden. For the torturers themselves suffered no hunger;

for it would in some way be more tolerable had they seemed to do these things driven by hunger; but they did it either to lay up food for themselves for the future, or that their cruelty might grow strong through practice. In these matters too, if any had crept out stealthily through the enemy's outposts to gather herbs, these robbers would meet them — men rejoicing that they had escaped the enemy's hands — and plunder whatever they had brought. And to those who begged, and invoked the name of God, once terrible to them, that they might grant even some small part of what they had sought at the peril of their lives, they gave absolutely nothing. Indeed, it counted as a favor if one who had been seized was allowed to escape alive. After some further passages he adds, saying:

For the Jews, once escape from the city was likewise cut off, every hope of deliverance was excluded, and the mounting bitterness of famine laid waste at once their houses and households and the whole nation, so that in the inner rooms lay strewn the corpses of women and children, while through the streets lay the bodies of wretched old men, consumed more by hunger than by age. The young men, and all the more robust in age, wandered like phantoms in the streets and thoroughfares, collapsing wherever starvation had undermined their step. And to bury the corpses of their neighbors neither the multitude of the dead nor their own bodily weakness permitted, and each man besides was uncertain of his own life.

In the end some breathed out their lives over the very ones they were burying; many too, while following a funeral, expired before they reached the tomb. Yet no customary lamentation nor mourning was rendered to the dead, because famine had claimed all this for itself; nor had the parching of starvation left anyone the moisture of tears. Deep silences besieged the city, and a night full of death had shrouded all things. Graver than all these evils, the robbers alone flourished, who counted it no crime even to rifle the tombs and strip the corpses — not so much seeking booty as heaping up wickedness with mockery, and testing the edge of their swords upon the mangling of the dead.

At times the sword to be tested was driven even into some who still breathed. When others, half-dead, saw this, they stretched out suppliant hands, that the robbers might turn their crime into a favor upon them too, whereby they might be released the more swiftly from the torments of hunger. But by a new kind of cruelty they refused, when asked, the death they inflicted of their own accord; yet each of the dying, with a groan, would turn his eyes back toward the temple, grieving not for his own death, but for the impunity of the robbers whom he was leaving behind alive. At first, from the intolerable stench, they had ordered the dead to be buried at public expense; but when the multitude of the dying began to exceed all outlay, they cast the corpses down from the wall.

But when Titus, going his rounds, saw the trenches filled with the corpses of the dead and the native soil soaked with the gore of human bodies, with a mighty groan he raised his hands to heaven and called God to witness that this was not his own doing. And after some further passages he again pursues such matters: I will not hesitate, he says, to declare what I feel. For I judge that, even if the arms of the Romans against those impious citizens had ceased but a little while, the city would have paid its penalty either through a chasm of the earth, or through a deluge of water, or through fires like Sodom's and thunderbolts hurled from heaven; for it had brought forth this present generation of men far more ill-omened, and more wicked, than those who endured these very things — men for whose sake the whole nation alike deserved to be destroyed.

But in his sixth book too he writes such things concerning the same events: And of those, he says, who throughout the whole city were being destroyed by the starvation of famine, the multitude was numberless, whose misery cannot be unfolded in words. For in every single house, wherever any food had been found, wars at once and slaughters arose among dear ones, even among parents and their children, as they strove to snatch the food from one another not only from the hands but even from the very throats. And there was no faith kept even toward the dead; but these too, as they were breathing out their last spirit, were searched by the robbers, lest perchance some scrap of food had lodged within anyone's bosom.

Others, gaping with starvation, were driven this way and that like rabid dogs and, as if goaded by a kind of madness, rushed again and again within a moment into the same houses. Necessity turned everything into food, even things which it was not the custom to give even to dumb beasts. At last they did not even abstain from straps or belts, or even from their very shoes. They also stripped off the leather coverings of the gates and thrust them in to be worked over by their teeth. Some ate even the stalks of old hay; and of refuse gathered from wherever they could, they would sell a tiny portion for four drachmas.

But what need is there to set forth by these examples the full weight of that famine, when there was done in that place a deed such as no ear among Greeks or barbarians has ever received — horrible indeed to tell, and to the hearing incredible? For my part I would gladly have kept silent about so monstrous a deed, lest anyone should think I was narrating prodigies, had I not had many men of our own generation as witnesses of the crime that was committed. Moreover, I judge that I render my country no service if I withhold the account of those evils whose deeds it endured.

A certain woman of those who dwelt beyond the channel of the Jordan, Mary by name, daughter of Eleazar, from the village of Bethezob — which is interpreted 'house of hyssop' — noble in birth and in possessions, having been caught at Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude that had streamed together there, was bearing along with all the common lot of the siege. Her remaining possessions, which she had conveyed from her home into the city, the tyrants seized; and if any remnants of her great wealth survived, by which she might draw out a very meager daily sustenance, the henchmen of the robbers, bursting in from moment to moment, snatched them away. On account of these things a great frenzy, as it were, of indignation wore the woman down, so that at times she provoked the robbers with curses, calling for her own death and hurling reproaches.

But when no one, whether provoked or moved to pity, would kill her, and when any food she chanced to seek was being sought only for others and no means of finding it anywhere remained, while dreadful hunger pressed upon her very vitals and marrow and starvation now goaded her to frenzy, then, taking hunger and wrath as her worst counselors, she armed herself against the very laws of nature. For she had a little son at her breast; and carrying him before her eyes she said: 'O son more wretched than your wretched mother, in war, in famine, and in the plundering of robbers, for what shall I keep you? For even if life could be hoped for, we are pressed beneath the yoke of Roman bondage. Yet now famine forestalls even bondage itself, while the robbers, harsher than both violences, bear down upon us.'

'Come, then, now, O my child: be food for your mother, fury for the robbers, and a byword for the ages — the one thing that was still lacking to the calamities of the Jews.' And when she had said this, she cut her son's throat at once, then roasted him set over the fire, and consumed one half, but kept the other half hidden. And behold, the robbers at once rushed in, having caught the smell of the roasted flesh, and threatened death unless she showed without delay the food they had perceived to be prepared. Then she said: 'Indeed, I have kept the best part for you.' And at once she uncovered the infant's remaining limbs. But a great horror suddenly seized them, and, fierce though their spirits were, they stiffened with dread, and their voice was choked in their throats. But she, with grim countenance and now more savage than the robbers themselves, said:

'This,' she said, 'is my son; mine is the offspring, and mine is the deed. Eat, for I too first ate what I bore. Do not be softer than a woman, nor more compassionate than a mother. But if pious scruple overcomes you and you abhor my food, then I, who have already fed upon such fare, will feed upon it again.' After this they departed terrified and trembling, they who had left this alone as food to the wretched mother out of all her possessions. And at once the whole city was filled with the report of the abominable crime, and each man, setting the deed before his eyes, shuddered as though he himself had committed it. And all whom the necessity of famine pressed hastened the more toward death, and called blessed those whom such a punishment had overtaken. And it is fitting to apply to this history the words of the Lord, in which the Savior himself foretold that such things would follow:

'But woe,' he says, 'to those who are with child and to those who nurse or give suck in those days. And pray that your flight be not in winter or on the sabbath. For there will then be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall be.' Now the aforesaid historian, gathering the total number of the slain, declares that both the assassins and the robbers perished after the destruction of the city by wounds inflicted upon one another. He says, moreover, that the choicest of the young men, whom the comeliness and tallness of their bodies recommended, were kept back for the triumph, but the rest, who were over seventeen years of age, were bound and consigned to the works of Egypt in the mines, or were scattered through the other provinces — some to be handed over to the gladiatorial games, others to the beasts.

But those who were found to be within their seventeenth year were ordered to be sold into slavery throughout the various provinces, and their number was brought up to ninety thousand. Now all these things were done in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, in accordance with what our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ himself had foretold, inasmuch as he beheld as already present the things that were to be done, at that time when, according to the testimony of the gospels, seeing the city, he wept over it and, as if speaking into its very ears, uttered these words:

'If you too had known, even in this your day, the things that are for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes; for the days will come upon you when your enemies will encircle you with a rampart, and surround you, and press you hard on every side, and level you to the ground, together with your children within you.' And again, as speaking of the people, he says: 'There will be great distress upon the land, and wrath against this people; and they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.' And again: 'But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by an army, then know that its desolation has drawn near.'

Let each man now compare the discourses of our Lord and Savior with the historian's account of the war that was waged and of the destruction of the city; and, beholding the marvelous power of the divine foreknowledge, he cannot but confess that these sufferings came upon the Jews by a just retribution, in return for this: that the whole nation cried out with one voice that the Author of life be taken away from among them. Nevertheless nothing prevents us from adding also those things through which the loving-kindness and clemency of God is seen to have been offered, even to the ungrateful.

For during forty continuous years after the guilt had been incurred, the apostles — and above all James, called the brother of the Lord, appointed bishop in Jerusalem — unceasingly admonished the people concerning the crime of the impiety they had committed and of the deadly deed they had dared, in the hope that they might perhaps do penance for what they had committed, if they could weep over the crime and escape the avenging flames of punishment; for God sought their repentance, since God does not so much will the death of a sinner as that he should be converted and live. With signs and prodigies given from heaven, displaying at once terrors and a threatening hand, God showed his warning; and in this matter, as in others, our faith will be sufficient testimony.

'But the unhappy people,' he says, 'certain most wicked men and deceivers had so beset that they would not believe the signs of divine warning and indignation, by which the destruction of both the city and the nation was openly foretold. But, as though stricken and out of their minds, having neither eyes nor soul within them, they spurned all that was announced from heaven. For a star, gleaming brightly and in every respect like a sword, was seen to hang above over the city, and moreover a comet was seen to burn with deadly flames throughout the whole year. And also before the time of the destruction and of the war, in the month Xanthicus — which is April — at the ninth hour of the night, so great a brightness of light surrounded the altar and the temple that all thought the clearest day had dawned; and it lasted for the space of half an hour.'

This to the unskilled indeed seemed of good omen, but by the skilled it was interpreted the other way. At the same feast, a heifer brought forward for the sacrifices and standing at the altars gave birth to a lamb amid the very hands of the ministers. Moreover the gate of the inner sanctuary that faced east — though it was overlaid with solid bronze and was consequently of immense weight, so that it was scarcely closed by twenty men pushing with the utmost effort, and though it was fortified with iron bars and bolts and held fast by locks sunk deep down — was suddenly, at the sixth hour of the night, seen to have opened of its own accord. And in the month Artemisius — which among us is called May — a portentous sight appeared, almost beyond belief, and which would truly be reckoned false, had not the ruin of evils that followed confirmed the trustworthiness of eyes.

For near sunset there were seen chariots and four-horse teams borne through the air in every region, and cohorts of armed men mingling with the clouds and cities encircled by unseen battle-lines. And the priests who had entered the temple to perform the ministries according to custom first perceived certain movements and noises, and then heard sudden voices saying: 'Let us depart hence.' To these things is added yet another, more terrible still. A certain rustic, before the fourth year of the war, when the city was at peace and in abundance, suddenly began to cry aloud: 'A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice over Jerusalem and over the temple, a voice over bridegrooms and brides, a voice over the people.'

This he kept doing until certain leading men among the people, stirred as if by indignation at the ill-omened prophecy, seized the man and afflicted him with many blows. But he, saying nothing whatever on his own behalf, nor even entreating those who stood around him, repeated the same words with equal obstinacy and outcry. The people, therefore, all the more incensed against the man, led him to the Roman magistrate, before whom, though torn by scourges to the very bones, he poured out neither prayers nor tears, but, uttering the same cry piteously and with a kind of wail, brought it forth at almost every single lash, adding also this: 'Woe, woe to Jerusalem!'

The same historian pursues yet another matter, wrought with a greater marvel, saying that a certain oracle was found in the sacred writings, that at that same time someone from their region would gain possession of the empire of the world. The presage of this oracle the same historian supposes to point to Vespasian. But Vespasian ruled over none but those nations alone which appeared subject to the Roman empire; whence these responses are more justly referred to Christ, to whom the Father had said, 'Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and for your possession the ends of the earth' — and whose sound at that same time went out through his apostles into all the earth, and whose words reached the ends of the world, imparting to them the knowledge of the things that had been done.

These things, then, Josephus also sets forth — Josephus, son of Matthias, a priest of Jerusalem, who himself both fought against the Romans in the earlier part of the war and no less took part in the later events. It is agreed, then, that this man was at that same time held to be most noble not only among the Jews, his own fellow citizens, but also among the Romans, so that on account of the merit of his writings a statue too was granted him in the city of Rome, and his books were deposited in the library. For he composed a history of the whole war waged against the Romans, comprising it in seven volumes, which he affirms he published not only in Greek eloquence but also in his ancestral, that is, the Hebrew tongue, for his own countrymen as well — a man worthy to be believed above all others.

But there also exist two other volumes of the same man concerning the antiquity of the Jews, in which he seems to reply to a certain grammarian who in those times had written against the Jews, and to certain others who had torn to pieces the custom and institutions of the Jewish nation. In the first, then, of these two books, he teaches, according to the tradition of the elders, which volumes are held in authority among the Hebrews. There are not innumerable volumes discordant among themselves, but only twenty-two books which contain the sequence of all times, and which are also justly believed to be divinely inspired. Among these, five are of Moses, containing the laws of life and the lineage of the human succession extending to the very end of Moses himself, and comprising the span of a little less than three thousand years.

But from the death of Moses up to Artaxerxes, who reigned after Xerxes among the Persians, the prophets of those times recorded in thirteen volumes the things that were done. The remaining four books hand down hymns to God and rules of life and admonitions to mortals. From Artaxerxes, however, up to our own time, all things have indeed been written, yet they are deemed worthy of a credence not equal to that accorded the earlier writings, because there did not exist so continuous and well-attested a succession of prophets.

Since, therefore, so many ages have intervened in these matters, no one has ever dared either to add, or to take away, or to alter anything; but among all the men of our nation this belief is, as it were, implanted and inborn: to hold that these are the decrees of God, and to cleave to them unceasingly, and, for their sake, if the case so require, even to die. This portion of the historian too has been, as I judge, not unfittingly inserted by us in this place. There is still another quite elegant volume of his, entitled 'That reason is what holds sovereignty within us.'

This little book some have entitled 'Of the Maccabees,' because in it the contests and struggles of the Maccabees are described. At the end of the twentieth book of the Antiquities the same man indicates that he had proposed to comprise in four volumes, according to the ancestral faith and religion, an account concerning God and concerning his substance and his laws, and why certain things are lawful among them and certain things are not lawful. He says, too, that some other minor works were composed by him. Moreover, at the end of the aforesaid twentieth book of the Antiquities, he convicts of falsehood a certain Justus of Tiberias, who had attempted to undertake this same kind of work which he himself had unfolded, in these words: 'But I did not imitate you in the things which I had written.'

'For I offered my books to the emperors themselves, while the events that had happened were still, as it were, before their very eyes, inasmuch as I was conscious in myself of the truth preserved in all things. Nor did my expectation deceive me concerning their testimony. But I offered them also to many others, of whom many had themselves taken part in the wars, such as King Agrippa and certain of his kinsmen. And the emperor Titus indeed so approved that the knowledge of the deeds should come to all men from those books, that he wrote with his own hand that they ought to be publicly read by all.'

And King Agrippa, in sixty-two letters, bore witness to the truth of our work, of which I shall append two. So much, then, from Josephus. But after the martyrdom of James, and the destruction of the city which immediately followed, it is handed down that the apostles and the rest of the disciples of the Lord who remained until that time came together from all places into one, along with those who were called kinsmen of the Lord according to the flesh — for very many even of these still survived at that time — and held a common counsel as to who ought to be judged worthy of the succession of James; and that all, with one counsel and one accord, decreed that Symeon the son of Cleophas, of whom mention is made in the gospels, should take up the seat of the episcopate.

He is said to have been a cousin of the Lord according to the flesh. Vespasian, moreover, ordered that any who might perhaps have survived among the Jews of the family of David be sought out, as men of royal lineage; and for this cause too a most grievous persecution was brought upon the Jews. But when Vespasian had administered the principate for ten years, his son Titus succeeds to the empire. In the second year of his reign, Linus, having completed twelve years in the episcopate, is said to have handed over the episcopate of the city of Rome to Anencletus, and departed this life. In the fourth year, then, of Domitian, at Alexandria, Annianus died, having administered the episcopate for twenty-two years. These men the apostle Paul designates, writing to the Philippians, when he says:

'With Clement and my other fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.' There exists an epistle of this Clement, plainly a most admirable one, which he dictated as it were in the person of the Roman church, when a dissension had arisen among the Corinthians; and we know that this epistle was publicly read in very many churches, both in ancient times and in our own. Concerning the persecution stirred up under Domitian, Hegesippus, a most faithful witness of the people of our church, indicates in this manner, saying: Domitian, having butchered noble and illustrious men in the city of Rome by no law and no reason, and having thrust countless others into exile and given them over to the plundering of their goods, raged against them. For this Domitian, second in this after Nero, set in motion a persecution against our people, although his own father Vespasian had inflicted absolutely no trouble upon us.

Finally Irenaeus, writing about the reckoning of the name of Antichrist which is contained in the Revelation said to be John's, in the fifth book against the heresies, records these things concerning John himself: 'For if it were necessary,' he says, 'that his name should at this time be proclaimed more openly, it would surely have been declared by the very one who also beheld the Apocalypse. For it is not a long time since the vision was revealed, but almost in our own age — indeed, toward the end of Domitian's principate.'

To such a degree, moreover, did the institutions of our faith flourish at that same time, that even some writers foreign to our religion consigned the martyrdoms of our people to the pages of their histories. These, having diligently investigated the time, indicate that in the fifteenth year of the emperor Domitian, together with very many others, Flavia Domitilla — the niece of Flavius Clemens, one of the consuls of that time — on account of the testimony she bore to Christ, was banished to an island named Pontia. And an old tradition holds that certain men descended from the lineage of David and the royal stock were denounced, as being of the posterity of Judas, whom they hand down to have been the brother of the Savior according to the flesh, and who were pressed under a twofold charge, because they descended from David's stock. These things Hegesippus relates in order, in these words:

There still survived grandsons of Judas, he who according to the flesh was called the brother of the Lord, whom certain men denounced as coming from David's stock. These the emperor Domitian summoned to himself, for he too dreaded the coming of Christ, just as Herod had at the beginning. Being questioned, therefore, by Domitian whether they were of the family of David, they confessed that they were. Then he inquired of them how great possessions, or how great means, they were endowed with. But they answered that the two of them together had no more in goods than nine thousand denarii, of which the half share fell to each of them as his portion.

And they said that these means did not consist for them in money, but in the valuation of the land they held, set at thirty-nine acres, which they cultivated with their own hands and by which they both fed themselves and paid their tribute; and they held out their hands, stiff with toil and hardened with callus. And being questioned about Christ — of what sort his kingdom is, or who he himself is, or whence and when he is to come — they answered that neither the kingdom of this world nor the dominion of this earth is assigned to him, but that his is a heavenly kingdom, which, coming in glory at the end of the world, will judge the living and the dead and will render to each according to his deeds and merits. At these things Domitian, finding in them nothing of crime and utterly despising their lowliness, ordered them to depart free.

Moreover, he orders by edict that the persecution which he had stirred up against the churches should cease. These men, being set free, and made leaders of the church either by the merit of martyrdom or by the prerogative of so great a kinship, remained, in a time now of peace, until the times of Trajan. So much, indeed, from Hegesippus. But Tertullian too relates similar things concerning Domitian, saying that he had begun to do certain things out of cruelty, but, like a fickle man, quickly desisted, so that he even recalled those whom he had sent into exile. Now after Domitian, who had held the empire for fifteen years, Nerva took up the principate. Under him all the honorary titles that had been decreed to Domitian were abolished, and those who had been unjustly thrust into exile by him were ordered, by decree of the senate, both to return and to recover their properties. Concerning each of these things, those who have recorded the deeds of those times bear witness.

At that time, then, the apostle John also, after his release from the island, returned to Ephesus as though to a school of his own. In the first year of his rule, Abilius, having served the priesthood at Alexandria for thirteen years, passed away; and Cerdo succeeded him as the third in the priesthood. In that same period, at the city of Rome, Clement likewise held the third place after (the first bishops); and at Jerusalem, Symeon, the second after James the brother of the Lord, governed the church in those same days, steering the helm of the churches that were there, having returned from the island after the death of Domitian, as we have said. That this was indeed so, I shall establish by two faithful witnesses.

Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria bear witness to this truth. In the second book Against Heresies, Irenaeus says this: 'And all the presbyters bear witness—those who in Asia saw John the disciple of the Lord—and they know that John handed down these things, John who also remained among them until the times of Trajan.' Likewise, in the third book of the same work, the same writer says thus concerning the same men: 'The church which is at Ephesus was indeed founded by Paul, but built up by John, who remained in it until the times of Trajan.'

You have this faithful witness concerning the times of the apostle. Now receive what Clement also says—whose testimony we likewise promised—for he weaves in at the same time a certain most necessary story, which, if we too insert it, we believe will be useful to our readers. He writes, then, as follows: 'Hear,' he says, 'a tale that is no tale, but a deed truly done concerning John the apostle, handed down to the memory of all. When, after the death of the tyrant, he returned from the island of Patmos to Ephesus, he was asked to visit the neighbouring provinces as well, that he might either found churches in places where there were none, or, in places where there were, appoint priests and ministers according to what the Holy Spirit indicated to him concerning each one.'

When, therefore, he had come to a certain city not far distant, and all the ecclesiastical duties had been solemnly discharged, he caught sight of a certain young man, robust in body and comely in countenance, but also exceedingly keen in spirit; and looking to the bishop who had lately been ordained, he said: 'This man I commend to you with the utmost earnestness, under the testimony of Christ and of the whole Church.' Then the bishop, taking him up, promised that he would apply all diligence, as he was directed. But repeating the same charge again and again more often, John commended the young man the more attentively, and after this he returned to Ephesus. Then indeed the presbyter took the youth into his own house, and at last bestowed on him even the grace of baptism.

After this, now as if confident in the grace with which he had been fortified, he began to keep the youth somewhat more indulgently. But that youth, when in his immature age he had gained his liberty, was at once thoroughly schooled by companions of his own age—whose heart is set on luxury and idleness—to love vices and to walk the path of a corrupt life. And first indeed he is deceived by the allurements of banquets; then they enlist him as their comrade and partner in nocturnal thefts; and after this they drag him on to still greater outrages.

Meanwhile the young man was gradually being moulded and trained to crimes, and being keen of temper, like an unbridled and powerful horse that with cruel bites is carried headlong in its whole course, so, as evils succeeded one another within him, he even came to despair of the salvation that had been granted him by God. He now disdains to think of small crimes; he contrives every kind of great one, and, giving himself over utterly to perdition, he suffers himself to be inferior to none in outrages. In short, out of these companions he formed a band, over which he himself presided as violent leader and chief, and with these he went raging with every cruelty.

But when time had passed, and the need of the matter had so required, John was again invited to that city; and when he had set in order the other matters for the sake of which he had come, he said, 'Come, restore to me the trust which I committed to you before the church, over which you preside as witness.' But the bishop was astounded, at first supposing that money was being demanded back from him which he had not received. But again he was left standing in bewilderment. When John saw him hesitating, he said: 'I am asking back the young man and the soul of a brother.' Then the old man, groaning and dissolved in tears, said: 'That man is dead.' 'How,' said John, 'and by what kind of death?' 'He is dead to God,' he answered, 'for he became most wicked and abandoned.' And John, striking his head with a groan, said: 'A fine keeper of a brother's soul I left behind! But now at once let a horse be made ready for me and a guide for the journey.'

And immediately mounting up from the very church, he hastened away in haste. And when he came to the place, he cried out with a loud voice: 'For this very thing have I come; bring me your chief.' When that one came armed, recognizing the apostle John from afar, driven by shame he turned to flight. But John, urging his horse after him, at once pursued the fugitive, forgetting even his age, and crying out at the same time: 'Do not be afraid; you still have hope of life. I will render account to Christ for you. Assuredly I will even gladly suffer death for you, just as the Lord suffered for us, and for your soul I will give my own soul. Only stand and believe me, that Christ has sent me.'

But he, hearing this, halted and cast down his face; and as the old man approached him, he fell most bitterly at his knees, making satisfaction with such groans and wailings as he could, and, with the most abundant fountains of his tears, was as it were baptized again, hiding only his right hand. But the apostle, torturing himself with the consciousness of the bloodshed—as though it were now cleansed through repentance—by the sacrament of an oath assured him that he would obtain pardon for him from the Saviour; and kissing that right hand, he led him back to the church, pouring out unceasing prayers for him, and, keeping frequent fasts together with him, sought from God the forgiveness which he had promised him. And with various consolations of discourse, as with certain incantations, he soothed his wild and terrified spirit.

Nor did he desist before he had set him, amended in all things, over the church itself, thus affording great examples of true repentance and a mighty proof of a new regeneration. These things spoken by Clement—as profitable not only for the knowledge of these matters but also for the benefit of readers—let them keep their place in our books also. As for the fame of that very name, which resounded throughout the whole world; and as for why, after the other three Gospels, it was placed by the ancients in the fourth position—this will be the reason.

The venerable apostles of Christ, truly worthy of God, though they were illustrious in all things by purity of life and by virtues of soul, set little store by refinement of speech and by the grace of signs which had been granted to them by our Lord Jesus Christ; and, trusting not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, they did not place the sum of the Lord's preaching therein, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and in power, through which, when marvellous deeds had been accomplished and the fidelity of their words established, (they had no thought) to compose many books, since an assertion of preaching of this kind needs not the argument of human speech but the confirmation of divine power.

In short, Paul, who among all the apostles appears the more learned even in words and most powerful in thoughts, committed no more than a few of his letters (to writing), (though he was privy to) countless mysteries—inasmuch as he had even been caught up to the third heaven and had beheld the things that were transacted there, and (had been carried up) into that very paradise worthy of God—having become, whether in the body or out of the body, for the time a disciple of that school; and there he had received ineffable words and doctrine, whatever it is that is there.

But the rest of the disciples of our Lord and Saviour also—not only those from the twelve, but even any outside that number who, being from the school of our Lord and Saviour, left behind in memory some discourse divinely inspired—willed that this should in every respect be brief and concise. Therefore, of the very disciples of the Lord, Matthew alone and John are handed down to have applied their minds to writing, provoked to this very thing by a certain necessity. For Matthew first composed (his Gospel) for the Hebrews, and, embracing the things which he had preached, left them for a memorial to those from whom he was setting out to preach to the Gentiles. After him the Gospel writing of Luke and Mark was published according to those causes which we mentioned above.

But they relate that John, almost to the very last (period) of his life (preached unwritten). Yet when the knowledge of these three Gospels had come even to him, he is said indeed to have approved the faith and truth of what was said, but nonetheless he saw that some things were lacking—and especially those which the Lord had done in the first period of his preaching. For it is certain that in the three foregoing Gospels these things (are recorded only up to the point) at which the Baptist was either shut up in prison or put to death. In short, if you observe, immediately at the beginnings of the narrative, after Matthew reports the fasting of forty days and the temptation of him, he at once subjoins, saying: 'And hearing that John was delivered up, he departed from Judaea and came into Galilee.' And Mark likewise:

'After John was delivered up,' he says, 'Jesus came into Galilee.' And Luke too, before he begins to relate anything about the acts of Jesus, says: 'that Herod added, above all the evils which he had done, this—that he shut up John in prison.' Since, I say, these things seemed to have been omitted by these (evangelists), the apostle John is said to have been asked to write down those things which the former had passed over—the things done by the Saviour before the delivering up of John. And therefore he says in his Gospel: 'This did Jesus as the beginning of signs,' and again in another place he indicates, saying: 'for John was not yet cast into prison.' From which it is established that he describes those things which were done by Jesus before John was delivered up.

And therefore, if anyone considers these things more carefully, he will plainly find that the Gospels do not disagree with one another, but that the deeds which John writes are of one time, and those which the others write are of another. Hence, since either Matthew or Luke had described the birth of the Saviour according to the flesh, John kept silent about these things and took his beginning from theology and from His very divinity. That part was without doubt reserved for him alone, as for an outstanding one, through the Holy Spirit. Let these things also be said concerning the Gospel of John. Concerning the Gospel of Mark, enough has been sufficiently set forth above. Luke, moreover, in the beginning of his Gospel, indicated the reason why he wrote—namely (as follows).

Since many others had rashly presumed to narrate matters which had been more clearly ascertained by them (i.e., by the eyewitnesses), wishing therefore to draw (us) away (from uncertain accounts), being sure that he had attained it—whether by Paul's exposition or by other apostles who from the beginning had themselves seen it and handed it down to him—he hands this down to us through his own Gospel. Let these things be said by us briefly concerning Luke as well. But (we will treat it) more opportunely and fully in due time, inserting these matters which the ancients (have handed down). There exist, moreover, the epistles, of the first of which there has never been any doubt, either by the ancients or by later men. But concerning the remaining two, and concerning the Revelation also, the opinion is still held in suspense even now; concerning which, as I said, and concerning which the ancients also doubted, we shall establish (the matter) in their proper places by the words of those very men.

Let us mark out the canon to the mind (of the reader): first of all let the heavenly four-horsed chariot of the Gospels be yoked for us; to these let the Acts of the Apostles be joined. After these let the epistles of Paul be associated; and let there follow upon these the first epistle of John, and likewise the first of Peter. These are the writings concerning which there has never been the slightest dispute. (Disputed) are: the Revelation of John—about which we shall show in their proper places what each of the ancients thought—and the epistle of James, and also of Jude, and the second of Peter, and likewise the second and third of John, whether they are shown to be the evangelist's own or even of another of the same name. After these there is now the writing which is called the Acts of Paul, and also the little book which is called (that) of the Shepherd, and the Revelation of Peter, concerning which there is the very greatest doubt.

There is also circulated the Epistle of Barnabas and the (writing) which is called the Teaching of the Apostles. Certain persons, moreover, especially those Hebrews who seem to receive Christ, make use of it; but in the church it is contradicted. All these things, nevertheless, have necessarily been enumerated by us, so that it might become clear without any ambiguity which (books) are of ancient authority, and which are those in which there is either some contradiction (or which are to be) rejected. But of those also one must know which are put forward under the name of the apostles by heretics—such as the (writings) they call the Gospels of Peter and Thomas and Matthias and the rest of the apostles likewise, and also the Acts of Andrew and John and of the other apostles—of which nowhere at all is there any mention or commemoration (among the ancients).

In these the very style also is detected to be much at variance with ecclesiastical usage. The sense too itself, and all the things which are brought forward in them, are far discordant from the apostolic faith; from which they are proved to be figments of heretical depravity. Hence they are to be driven away utterly as alien and at variance with the rule of piety.

Menander succeeds (Simon), a shield of the devil no less than the first, and himself likewise a Samaritan by birth, but in the magic art he alone was found (unrivalled); who was borne up indeed by no greater portents, calling himself the saviour, sent from the heavenly and invisible ages for the salvation of men, asserting that no one could otherwise conquer the angels of the age unless he first received from him in due order the discipline of the magic art, and, through the baptism given by him, being made immortal and eternal, became everlasting in this life. All of which it is very easy for those who wish to know from the books of Irenaeus. But Justin also, in those very (writings) in which he had made mention of Simon, writes certain such things concerning this man too:

'We know that a certain Menander, a Samaritan from the village of Capparattea, a disciple of Simon, incited by demonic goads, came to Antioch and deceived very many by the magic art; who could even persuade his followers of this—that they would not die. From whom, to this day, there are some who out of that (teaching) confess the same things.' This is truly a contrivance of the devil, that magicians should impose upon themselves the name of Christians, whereby through this holy and venerable mystery of our religion they might defile it—men who nevertheless, deriding it, despise the ecclesiastical doctrines, whether concerning the immortality of the soul or concerning the resurrection of the dead.

But these, relying on such authors, (deceived themselves) concerning the hope of salvation and of life. And the same demon deceived others also—those whom he could not separate from the love of Christ—by another art nonetheless, that is, the Ebionites, whose name is interpreted 'poor.' For truly they are poor and destitute in the knowledge of the glory of Christ, seeing that indeed they suppose Him to be a mere man, and made a righteous man through the progress of life and virtue, begotten also by a common birth from man and woman. And they judge that the observance of the law is even to be kept. Yet some of them shrink back from this impiety, so as to assert that He was born of man and woman, but they confess (that He was born) of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary; nevertheless they do not acknowledge that He was always God, and the Word, and the Wisdom of God.

But they keep the bodily observance of the law. The apostles, however, they use even a certain single gospel, which is called 'according to the Hebrews,' and reckon all the rest as nothing. They observe the sabbaths with the Jews according to the law, but with us they observe the Lord's Day as consecrated in memory of the Lord's resurrection. Whence the Ebionites are fittingly named on account of the poverty of their understanding. (Concerning Cerinthus) we have received (an account). Concerning whom Gaius, of whom we have already made mention above, writes thus in the dialogue of his disputations: 'But Cerinthus also,' he says, 'through certain revelations, as though (written) by (an apostle), introduces to us certain portents.'

He says that after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be earthly, in Jerusalem, and that men will again have a manner of life in the flesh subject to lusts. Contrary to the faith of the Scriptures also, he designates a certain thousand years, in which he says there will be many other works of corruption and festivities of marriages. But Dionysius too, when he was discoursing on the Revelation of John and disputing certain things according to what had been anciently handed down to the churches, makes mention of this very man in these words: 'Cerinthus,' he says, 'from whom also the Cerinthian heresy arose, (was one who) longed (to lend authority) to his depraved understanding; for this indeed was his heresy—that he affirmed the kingdom of Christ would be earthly.'

'And because he was given over to the belly and the gullet and to lust, he decreed those things to be future which his own lust dictated to him—that is, the gratifications of the belly and of those parts which are beneath the belly. And that he might seem to speak (of these) rather grossly, he said that legal festivities were to be celebrated again, and carnal victims to be slaughtered anew.' But Irenaeus too published even the more secret things of this same heretic in the first book of his work, that anyone may learn from there, if he wishes to know more fully. (Concerning the Nicolaitans, who) held sway for a time, and of whom mention is also made in the Revelation of John. These men boasted that they had as their author Nicolaus, one of those who with Stephen had been appointed deacons by the apostles. But Clement of Alexandria (relates): 'This man,' he says, 'had a very beautiful wife.'

'And after the ascension of our Lord and Saviour, when he was rebuked by the apostles as if for a wrong of jealousy, he brought his wife forward into the midst and permitted (her to any) who might wish to have her.' From which occasion these men supposed it followed that (a man might abuse his body) as it pleased (him). And, seizing upon a saying or a deed (done) simply and innocently, without any reverence, these men now seek out promiscuous and unlawful embraces—these who under his name had taken to themselves a sect of their own lust. But to me it has been ascertained that Nicolaus knew no woman at all except her whom he had taken in marriage.

His children too—the daughters indeed continued in chaste virginity even to their utmost old age, and the son also himself guarded the sanctity of an uncorrupted body. Since these things are so, it is established that, as for the fact that he brought his wife forward into the midst of the apostles on account of the suspicion of jealousy, (he did so) to show that the pleasure of the flesh—which he was thought too eagerly to seek after—was rather to be despised than sought after, teaching (this). Since indeed he was unwilling, as I suppose, according to the Saviour's precept, to serve two masters, lust and God.

They say, moreover, that Matthias also taught thus: 'that one must fight against the flesh and yield in nothing whatever to its pleasure and lust, but that the soul is to be nourished with the pastures of wisdom and the food of knowledge, and to be ever increased unto the greater.' Let these things (be said) concerning those heresies which in the aforementioned times (rose up) against the truth. (Clement, arguing against those) who scorn marriage, says among other things also this: 'Do they even reprobate the apostles? For Peter indeed and Philip both had wives, and even gave their daughters in marriage to husbands.'

'But even Paul (does not hesitate) in a certain letter of his to address his consort, whom he says he does not on that account take about with him, in order that (he might be more free) for preaching.' But since we have made mention of Clement, it will not be absurd to bring forward also another memorable narration of his, which he (relates) in the seventh (book of his Stromateis): 'They say,' he says, 'that the blessed Peter, when he had seen his wife led away to her passion, rejoiced on account of her election and her return to her proper home, and cried out, calling to her after her by her own name as she was led away, and said: O wife, remember the Lord.' Such were (the marriages) of the saints. But we have also in part already told the time of John, at which he departed from life; now it seems fitting to me to teach, concerning the place of his rest, according to the faith of Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus.

For this Polycrates, writing likewise to Victor, makes mention of him, as we have already inserted above: 'That great lights have fallen asleep in the regions of Asia, which (will rise again when the Lord comes and) will seek out all His saints. I speak,' he says, 'of Philip, whose (daughters) there grew old as virgins, and his other daughter, filled with the Holy Spirit, remained at Ephesus. And that John, who reclined upon the Lord's breast, who was a priest of God wearing the pontifical plate, and a martyr and an excellent teacher—he sleeps at Ephesus.' Let this suffice (to have been said). But Gaius too, of whom mention was made before, in his dialogue which he writes disputing with Proclus, mentions the daughters of Philip, together with his death also, in words that agree, saying:

'But after these things there were four prophetesses, the daughters of Philip, whose tomb is at Hierapolis, a city of Asia, together with their daughters.' (And Luke relates that Paul and his companions) stayed at Caesarea. He says thus: 'We came,' he says, 'to Caesarea, and entering into the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, we abode with him. And this man had four virgin daughters who prophesied.' These things, then, having been gathered by us concerning the apostles, and also concerning the canon of the Scriptures—which books are held in authority, or which are utterly repudiated, and which indeed are in a manner intermediate, received by the churches only for instruction and not also for undoubted authority—having been consequently set forth, let us proceed to the rest.

(While we tarried), through the several cities we experienced, out of the insolence of the populace, a persecution stirred up against our people. At which time also Symeon, son of Cleopas, whom we above showed to have been ordained the second bishop at Jerusalem, was through martyrdom released from the bonds of the flesh. Their confirmer (i.e., the historian Hegesippus), therefore, relates that the aforesaid man was accused by certain heretics as a Christian, and was afflicted for many days with many tortures, so that even the judge himself, together with his friends, marvelled at his endurance, and at last ordered him to end his life by a passion like to that which the Lord had suffered. From these very (accounts), then: 'Certain men accused Symeon, son of Cleopas, as being of the race of David and a Christian.'

And thus he was made a martyr, being one hundred and twenty years old, under Trajan Caesar. He (Hegesippus) adds this also—that his accusers, when in those times inquiry was being made whether any descended from the race of David and from the royal tribe, were themselves apprehended among those (of that lineage).

But that Symeon was one of the very hearers of the Lord—either his great age is an indication, or the Gospel (testimony). And the same writer relates certain others besides those of whom we have spoken above—the grandsons of Jude, one of the brethren of the Lord—found surviving through the same period and made martyrs in the times of Domitian, in this manner: (that both) the Lord's kinsmen (and, when peace had been restored to the church), they remained until the times of Trajan Caesar, up to the point when the Lord's cousin Symeon, of whom we have spoken above, the son of Cleopas, suffered calumny from the heretics, being delivered to the consular (governor) as a Christian.

And when he had been afflicted with tortures for a long time, he was consummated by martyrdom, all who were present—and the judge himself—marvelling how a man of one hundred and twenty years old (could endure the passion) of the cross. After this the same writer added this also—that up to those times the church remained a pure and immaculate virgin, the corrupters of the truth and the violators of the divine word being either nowhere at all in existence, or, even if perchance there had been any, lurking in the hidden and secret clefts of the earth.