Church History Books 1–9 (trans.) 3 part 2/4

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.