教會史卷 1–9（拉丁譯本） 第 1 章

On the diversity of the genealogies recorded by Matthew and Luke; and VII On the slaughter of the infants at Bethlehem and the coming of the Magi; VIII On the torments of Herod himself, who ordered the infants to be killed; XI That the records which the Jews put forward are proved false even by the testimony of Josephus, from a comparison of the dates; XII That from the high priest Annas down to Caiaphas there were four high priests; XIII On John the Baptist, the testimony of Josephus, and that he affirms him to have been a just man, and that vengeance came upon the Jews on account of his death; XVI The text of the letter of Abgar to the Lord and of the Lord to him, and of those things which were consequently translated from the Syrian tongue.

...which have run down even to our own time, and what and what manner of things have in these been done regarding the state of the Church; what eminent men presided over the churches in the most renowned places, or who at each several period; and likewise who, and how great, and when, putting forward new doctrines against religion, in their zeal for contention slipped into the depth of error and professed themselves authors and teachers of a false knowledge, everywhere like grievous wolves tearing the flock of Christ; and also those evils which laid waste the Jews; by what modes too, and how often, and at what times the teaching of Christ and the divine word was assailed by the heathen, and how many in these storms contended even to the endurance of punishments and the shedding of blood for the truth of the word of God; and the martyrdoms borne in our own times. To me, then, wishing to write of these things, the sole most merciful support seems to be drawn from no other beginning than from the bodily presence itself of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

But I beg that pardon be granted me; for I confess that in this work I attempt things greater than our strength, since we dare to tread, as it were, a first journey of this kind upon a way much diverged from that of our predecessors. And although I am sure that God will be our guide and that the support of our Lord and Savior will be at hand for us, yet we perceive no footprints of men gone before, on which we might lean, except that here and there the records of individuals have been handed down; from these certain torches of light are kindled for us from afar, as for those set in darkness, and as from a lofty watchtower we are admonished by their voices whither we ought to direct our step and to guide the way of the word without error.

Whatever things, then, seemed to suit the proposed work, plucking the little flowers of the learned from their reasonable fields, we have attempted to gather and compact into one body by historical narration, deeming it abundantly gratifying if—even though not of all—at least of the most noble apostles of our Savior we seem to have taken up into one the successions handed down to the more famous churches, all the more necessary because, as I said above, I find that no ecclesiastical writer at least has applied his mind to this part of the narrative.

In which I hope this also: that this work of ours will be of very much use, from the knowledge of past deeds, to all who are studious. In that work which we composed concerning the reckoning of times I touched upon these things briefly and concisely, but more fully in the present work, of each matter. My discourse, then, will begin, as we promised, from the Lord Himself, Christ.

It seems good first to set forth whence this race of men takes its beginning, or what the meaning of its very name contains, from which this nation or people is called. Christ consists, as it were, of a twofold mode, and holds in Himself the fullness of the divine and human nature alike: in Him the divine substance is held to be as it were the head, the human—which He took up for our salvation—the feet; and so at last we may more perfectly begin, by which both the antiquity and the nobility of the Christians—who are believed to be a nation of a new name—are alike shown. To bring forth, then, and unfold the race of Christ and the very nature of His substance no discourse will suffice, since even the divine word so speaks of Him; but elsewhere too it is recorded of Him in heavenly utterances thus:

for 'no one knows the Son but the Father, nor does anyone know the Father but the Son.' He alone, therefore, who begot Him is said to know the Son—the Father; and without doubt He excluded all others from examining the knowledge, who referred the knowledge of the Son to the one Father alone. He, then, in these volumes which are believed to have been written by the divine Spirit, is proclaimed to be the eternal light, and to have been always, even before the beginning of the world; substantial Wisdom likewise, and the living Word, is related to have subsisted in the beginning with the Father, and the Word to be God. Who, then, will be able to comprehend in discourse Him who is described to have always been before every visible and invisible creature?

Who, in words, could explain Him as the Lord and Leader and Prince of all the heavenly, immortal, and divine powers, and the Angel of the heavenly host and of the great counsel, the efficacy of the paternal will—Him who, it is agreed, with the Father created and founded all things that are—as the true Son and Only-begotten, the Lord and King and Ruler of all things that have been created, governing all things by paternal power and authority? Save that, for the understanding of His fullness, one filled by the more secret things of the Spirit of God says: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God: all things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing.'

But Moses also, the greatest and most ancient of the prophets, when, full of God, he disclosed the origin of the world and the beginnings of things, designates with mystical and hallowed words the Father, the maker of all, together with the Son. For he says: 'And God said: Let us make man after our own image and likeness.' But David also, himself most ancient, though later than Moses, [says]: 'by the Spirit of His mouth all their power'; and elsewhere the same nonetheless: '...and they were created'—in which words he plainly expressed the person of the Father commanding and of the Son working. Since, then, by these and very many other utterances it is made clear, it remains that of those things which after the creation of the world He transacted for the dispensation of men, we touch as briefly as we can.

It is shown that He stood by and taught many men endowed with piety even before, the things which seemed to pertain to divine worship. But more evidently and more familiarly is He described to have made Himself known—as far as it was right for God to be known to men—to Abraham and his household, and is related to have stood forth as a kind of teacher and monitor of that lineage. Finally, it is written in the divine oracles that God appeared to Abraham as some common man, sitting at the oak of Mamre. And he, rising up when he saw a man, adores Him as God and venerates Him as Lord. And by the profession of his own voice he attests that he is not ignorant of the divine presence, saying:

'O Ruler, Lord, who judgest all the earth, wilt Thou not do judgment?' All which things assuredly are to be referred not to the Father but to the Son, which the reckoning of the dispensation later fulfilled in the flesh designates as more fully accomplished. And the same prophet David says of God: 'He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their corruptions.' But still more evidently, through Moses, the divine oracles testify of Him that He Himself is Lord together with the Lord, when it says: 'The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord.' And the same Scripture designates Him to be God when He had appeared to Jacob, saying to Jacob: 'No longer shall thy name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name, because thou hast prevailed with God'; and a little after it says:

'And Jacob,' it says, 'called the name of that place the Vision of God,' saying: 'For I have seen God face to face, and my soul has been saved.' For it is not right to think these things of any of the angels or of the heavenly powers. For the divine word designates none of them as Lord or God, even when they are sometimes commanded by heavenly mandate to be present to mortals. He also said to Joshua, the successor of Moses, when He had stood by him and Joshua had asked who He was, with most evident replies; and when the servant, hearing this, had adored Him as was fitting: 'Loose,' He said to him, 'the strap of thy sandal; for the place in which thou standest is holy ground.'

In which the likeness of the precepts is to be considered, since this was none other than He who had said to Moses out of the fire of the bush: 'Do not draw near hither; loose thy sandals from thy feet; I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.' It became clear, then, from all these things, that the Word of God, and God, and Lord, and Creator of all, was designated as Son together with the Father. Now let us also see this: how He shows in the divine oracles, through Solomon, that He Himself exists substantially as the Wisdom of God: 'I dwelt, I invoked counsel and knowledge and understanding: by me kings reign and the mighty by me write justice; by me nobles are magnified, and tyrants by me obtain the earth.'

And after some things He says again: 'The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works; before the ages He founded me, in the beginning, before He made the earth, before the fountains of waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, and before all the hills He begot me. When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him; and when He set the fountains firm beneath the heaven, I was with Him composing all things. I was the one in whom He daily delighted; and I rejoiced before Him at all times, when He rejoiced, the world being completed.' From all which it is established that Wisdom was from the beginning—nay, even before every beginning that can be named—begotten by the Father Himself.

But what the cause was that it did not become known to all everywhere, as now, even formerly, and that faith and knowledge of Him did not reach all, we shall set forth. The world, still raw and ignorant of all skill, could not yet grasp the perfect doctrine of the wisdom of Christ; for indeed at once in the beginnings, when those men who had first been created were yet living in blessedness, by their negligence the command of God being corrupted, they fell into this mortal life subject to frailty, and exchanged for the delights of paradise a dwelling of this earth damned by divine curse. And now those who were spread through the world from such progenitors, [living] more after a wild and bestial manner, held no laws for the justice of life.

Of arts and disciplines and all philosophy not even the very name was held among them, but as rude and roving folk they wandered through the deserts with no fixed abodes. But if any good seeds had naturally grown in them through the clemency of the Creator, these they turned to baser ends, since the race inclines more readily to wickedness. Whence it came about that, dealing among themselves in nefarious crimes, now they were corrupted, now also they were destroyed by one another, until, as their savagery advanced, they were even devoured by one another. Hence those battles-of-the-gods, which left tales of crime to the world... and so that He might withstand by the deluge of flood, and now also by the devastation of a fiery shower, and restrain the monstrousness of crimes by the variety of punishments.

But since to its Creator the human race, corrupted by the disease and contagion of malice, seemed rather to be amended than destroyed, He then in pity... He who in the beginning was with God, God the Word and the Wisdom of the Father, now uses the embassies of angels and ministering powers, now also by ineffable condescension is Himself present; and wherever He finds some rare one mindful of God and of justice, He strives to reform and recall the human race from darkness by divine revelations, by wholesome admonitions, by instruction such as befitted God—in no other than human form, by which alone men can be taught something and instructed and helped—until little by little He converted a whole nation, which was called that of the Hebrews, to His worship and veneration.

On whom also—inasmuch as they were still rude and infected with the contagion of their former life—through Moses the prophet He impressed the types and shadowing-forth of the divine worship, through certain mystical sabbaths and the circumcision of the body signifying something higher in the spirit, and the other legal precepts of this kind, as it were the rudiments of a holier learning that was one day to come.

Yet this law, when it had shone forth as a kind of beginning of light upon this world, and by the fragrance of its odor [had given] a certain savor to the regions, the more prudent lawgivers and philosophers, taking it up, began little by little to hand on and instill into their hearers whatever precepts were modest and more decorous, and conscious of uprightness and justice, and to recall the wild and savage manners of men to comely and honorable institutions.

Then they taught men to come together in friendships among themselves and to enter into covenants of concord; then men learned to help one another and to have a common use of things, until the human mind, made docile by a more prudent training, was rendered patient of mutual fellowship—so that, this prelude of such a custom having been sent before, they might now become fit and prepared even for divine institutions, and exist as capable of the knowledge of God, the Father of all.

In which He again, Himself the master of all virtues, Himself the discourse and reason and Word and Wisdom of God, He who in the beginning had created man together with the Father, He, I say, having assumed also the substance of human nature and clothed in the appearance of a servile form, in nothing at all differing from that which we are... had He shown beforehand... entered this world by a common mode of birth with us, yet with no father disclosed; He did and endured those things which the prophets had foretold concerning Him.

For men divinely inspired sang in sacrosanct oracles that a man who should at once be also God would come to this world, and would be the teacher of all nations in paternal piety and religion; and also the manner of death by which He would depart from this life, and how again, in an unwonted way, He would return from the dead to the living, and after this would go to heaven, whence He had descended, and would return to God. Of which, though very many of the prophets evidently signified, yet, so far as the necessity of brevity allows, I will adduce the indication of one alone, namely Daniel. He says, then, of Him thus: 'I beheld, and lo, thrones were set, and the Ancient of days sat; and His garments were white as snow, and the hair of His head as clean wool:'

'His throne was a flame of fire, His wheels burning fire. A fiery stream issued forth before Him. Judgment was set, and the books were opened.' And after this: 'I beheld, and lo, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came even to the Ancient of days, and in His sight He was brought forth; and there was given to Him principality and honor and a kingdom, and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him. His power is an everlasting power, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom shall not be destroyed.' All these things are most manifestly understood to be spoken of none other than of our Savior, who was in the beginning with God, God the Word.

For He is called the Son of man because of this, that in the last times... In their proper places we have arranged the assertions of these things. But how also this name of Christ which we have mentioned [was foreshown] through the prophet... wishing to show what of veneration the name of Christ and of the mystery contains in itself, when he was bidden to describe in the law the types and images of the heavenly sacraments, as had been shown him on the mountain, and when he handed down the rite of constituting a high priest—as far as it was right to teach a mortal—he named Christ the sacrament of a certain mystical anointing; so that by this those who were instructed through the law might learn that what is to be held above all men in honor and reverence is named Christ.

But the same Moses, foreseeing far ahead through the Spirit of God who would be prepared as his successor, and foreknowing that he who should take up the kingdom after him would be the minister of a greater sacrament, surnamed Jesus him who had previously been called by the appellation Auses (Hoshea) of his parents, knowing that in the sacrament of this name there would be set forth a king of a certain greater glory than mortal nature receives. Thus, then, through these twin indications of appellation, the insignia of the priesthood are expressed in the one, and of the royal form in the other.

And He is named both Jesus and Christ, as one who is at once King and Priest, so that the people, mystically instructed through the preceding sacraments, might recognize that nothing pertaining to religion nor to power was lacking in Him. Whence the prophets, moved by the divine Spirit, foresaw in Him at once both the impiety of the Jews and of the Gentiles and salvation. And one of them, whose name is Jeremiah, foretold some such thing: 'The Spirit of our countenance, Christ the Lord,' he says, 'was taken in our corruptions, of whom we said: In His shadow we shall live among the nations.' But David also, the magnificent seer, records these things of the same One: 'Why did the nations rage and the peoples imagine vain things?'

'The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together in one against the Lord and against His Christ.' And a little after he says, in the person of Christ Himself: 'The Lord said to me: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance and the ends of the earth for Thy possession.' Now not only the high priests were consecrated with the ointment of chrism among the Hebrews, but also the kings, who themselves too, because by the nod of the Godhead through the prophets [they were so appointed], were nevertheless themselves also called 'christs' (anointed ones), so that in them too the image and likeness of the heavenly King might be preserved.

But also in the order of the prophets we find that some, consecrated in like manner with the ointment of chrism, rendered ministry to the divine oracles and were made knowers of things to come. Since, then, He is the true King of all the ages, and the true Priest of things to come, and the true Prophet—inasmuch as He inspires and fills the prophets—therefore He is truly named Christ, of whose name, through those whom we enumerated above, the priests, prophets, and kings were the type and image which had gone before. They were [so] called only for the preserving of the image of the true Christ, although by a certain mystical compounding of consecrated oil—yet of this material and liquid which is wont to be had among us—they were anointed.

But this true One, who had come from the heavens and for whom all the deeds that went before had been wrought, becomes Christ not by ointments sought by human resources, but in a new and singular manner, being infused and anointed by the paternal Spirit; just as many ages before, the seer Isaiah had foretold of Him, in the person of Christ Himself, saying: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me; He has sent me to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and sight to the blind.' Nor did Isaiah alone foretell these things in divine oracles, but David also, similarly inspired, testifies of Christ, saying to Christ Himself: 'Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever; the rod of equity is the rod of Thy kingdom.'

'Thou hast loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore God, Thy God, has anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.' In which words he first plainly designates Him as God, and secondly, by the rod of equity, commemorates the royal scepter in Him. But afterward he also indicates in what manner He was made Christ, saying that God was anointed by God, not with common oil, but with the oil of gladness; and not as His fellows—that is, those who had gone before in the image—but above His fellows. And the oil of gladness, in the sacred volumes, by a mystical understanding, designates the Holy Spirit.

But also concerning His priesthood the same David in another place signifies some such thing in secret words, as in the person of the Father pronouncing of the Son: 'From the womb,' he says, 'before the morning star I begot Thee. The Lord has sworn and will not repent: Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.' Now this Melchizedek is recorded in the divine volumes to have been a priest of God the Most High—but one who was not anointed with common oil, nor who received the priesthood from a succession of lineage, as was the custom among the Hebrews. And therefore Christ is said to be a priest to come according to his order, who is consecrated not by the liquor of oil, but by the power of the heavenly Spirit.

Therefore, although many among the Hebrews were solemnly anointed with oil consecrated for this very purpose, and were thereby made 'christs' (anointed ones), and were thus instituted whether as kings or prophets or high priests, none of them was able to give his own name to a people or to disciples or to followers, or to call his disciples 'Christians,' except this one alone, who is the true Christ, anointed not with human oil but with the Father's Spirit. He it is who caused the peoples of his followers, and the whole nation gathered from throughout the world under his name, to be called by the perpetual name of 'Christians,' derived from the title of the true Christ.

If then we ask whence he derives his origin, let us consider what the divine oracles declare through David, that most excellent prophet, speaking in the person of the supreme Father himself, as we also recalled a little earlier: 'From the womb...'

'Before the morning star I begot thee,' he says. And although the term 'womb' would seem scarcely fitting for one who is rightly believed to be incorporeal, nevertheless by figurative and mystical laws this is what is signified: that the Father did not substitute a Son from outside or from some other source, but from his very own self and, if it may be said, from his own inmost being; so that he who was born should be the very same as he who begot, and lest the Son should seem to have been taken up from outside by a law of adoption, but rather—so far as the term 'womb' suggests to our understanding—that, with the reverence due to his incorporeality preserved, he should be shown as brought forth from within by the truth of his nature. And in that he says 'before the morning star,' he designates the beginning before the world and before all creation.

A clear proof of the distinction between the true Christ and those imaginary ones who had gone before is given in this: that those former 'christs' were known to almost none save their own nation, whereas of this true Christ not only the name, but also his power and kingdom have been spread through all nations and throughout the whole circle of the earth—consecrated not merely by the recognition of his title, but by the worship of his divinity and the reverence of religion. For in every land Christ Jesus is honored and adored as the Word and Wisdom of the Father, as God and Lord, even as the divine utterance proclaimed concerning him, saying:

'That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Christ is in the glory of God the Father.' Whence not only his power and kingdom, but also so great an affection and love for him have grown deep in the minds of believers, that the faith and reverence of those who love him keep them ready even to lay down their lives and offer their necks for his name against his persecutors.

Let these things, meanwhile, have preceded of necessity the narration of the matters which we have set out to pursue—in which it is shown that the name of Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior, is not that of some newly coined appellation, nor derived from this fleshly nativity, but takes its origin from God himself. But since the Christian people seems to be of a recent name, and the rite of its observance to have arisen but lately, let us also show what antiquity this very novelty contains within itself.

I judge the race of the Hebrews to be reckoned the most ancient of well-nigh all nations—a thing that ought to seem doubtful to no one—and that among this very nation a certain more hidden worship of religion and observance is contained in the divine volumes; in which are recorded those who lived even before the Flood, and others also after the Flood, wherein it is written of Noah and his sons and all his lineage, and the account extends down to Abraham, who is established to be the ancestor of the Hebrew race. Therefore, if anyone should say that all those who from Abraham upward, back to the first man, were Christians in respect of religion, he does not seem to me to err.

For since the name 'Christian' signifies this—that a person, believing in Christ, holds through his teaching faith, piety, and righteousness, and cleaves to the pursuits of divine wisdom, and carries out all that pertains to virtue—if they mean by it one who is a follower of religion, then this too were those holy men of whom we spoke above, which men now profess to be Christians. For neither did bodily circumcision belong to them, nor observance of the Sabbath (just as it does not belong even to us), nor any scruple concerning the observance of foods, nor the other things that are handed down. Since therefore those religious men, whom we mentioned above, were religious apart from all these observances, and yet followed his faith,

—the faith of him, that is, of Christ, whom we now follow, and whom we have proved in the preceding pages to have frequently appeared to them and to have taught and admonished them in the things that pertain to faith and piety—how shall it be doubted that from those men this nation's origin began and was derived, seeing that they too followed the same God as author and guide of life, and persisted in a like observance of religion? Indeed, this religion was so far foreshadowed and prefigured in them that they are not held to be strangers even in the very name (which alone would seem to make the difference); rather, the divine oracles testify that even then they were called not only Christians but even 'christs' (anointed ones). For it is said of them, in the person of God, to foreign nations:

'Touch not my christs, and do my prophets no harm.' Since these words are recorded as spoken concerning Abraham and those who in that time belonged to the worship of God, it is most evidently and more clearly than light shown that in them and before them a people of Christians already existed even then, and held to all the observance of piety and religion—which observance, it is established, has now, through the coming of Christ's bodily presence, been shared among all nations and imparted to all peoples; so that the treasure of wisdom and piety, which was kept as it were within a narrow chamber for certain rare worshipers, might enrich the whole world with an outpouring of faith and religion, and that what before was granted to individuals should now, at once and suddenly, be brought to whole nations and peoples and races.

Foreseeing by divine inspiration that this would so come to pass, a certain outstanding one of the prophets, struck in mind with amazement, cries out in wonder and says: 'Who has heard such things? And who has spoken thus?' Likewise in another place, concerning these very things—that the divine word had foretold that a nation was to be brought forth at once as in travail—he bears witness and says: 'But to these who serve me shall be given a new name, which shall be blessed upon the earth.' And what other new name has been given to the nations than the appellation of 'Christians'? He calls it a new name as lately dispersed, not lately invented. Truly the divine oracles have by no means kept silent that this too should so come to pass, and that this blessing of the name and of faith should be bestowed upon all nations.

For concerning Abraham himself, while he was yet in uncircumcision, the divine word says: 'Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.' He is therefore said to have believed him whom, as we have shown above, we have taught to have frequently appeared and to have instructed him in the things pertaining to piety and religion—namely Christ, through whom, as has often been proved, all things that have been done or are to be done have their subsistence. From whom also to Abraham himself responses of this kind are conveyed: 'And in thee,' he says, 'shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed'; and again:

'I will make thee into a great and numerous nation, and in thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' In which it is evidently expressed that that worship and that grace of faith, which was then granted to Abraham and to those few who at that time were distinguished for faith and piety, was afterward to be bestowed, under the title of blessing, through all nations and through all lands by divine grace. For it is certain that, just as he, believing him who appeared to him, was justified, and, having repudiated and spurned his ancestral superstitions, followed out by faith and works the precepts of the true God—and for this it is said to him:

'Because in thee shall all the tribes and all the nations of the earth be blessed'—so also let Christians by faith and works do this, that, having cast off the error of ancestral superstition, they may follow the God whom Abraham followed, and by a faith like his be justified, even as Abraham was justified. What then hinders that one and the same observance of religion should be reckoned in those in whom it has been established that there is one and the same form of faith and works? And therefore the Christian religion is not new nor foreign nor lately arisen; but, if it is lawful to declare freely what is true, it is the first of all, and from its very Founder, even from the beginning, receives its aspect and its form.

Now that we have, in consequence, set forth beforehand these things which ought to precede the historical narrative, it remains that we now approach, as it were, the beginning of our journey—both from the bodily presence of our Lord and Savior and from the things done thereafter—calling upon the almighty God, Father of the Word, and upon him whose deeds are being recounted, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, the heavenly Word of God, as helper. Now upon the death of Antony and Cleopatra, with whom the kingdoms of the Ptolemies in Egypt fell to their utter end, in the twenty-eighth year our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is born in Bethlehem, a town of Judea, at the first registration of the census, while Quirinius was governing Syria, according to the whole order of the prophecy that was foretold concerning him.

Now this census, taken in the times of Quirinius, is also recorded by Josephus, the illustrious historian of the Hebrews, who adds to this narrative that the heresy of the Galileans arose in those same times—concerning which, among us, Luke in the Acts [relates]: 'Judas the Galilean in the days of the enrollment of the census also drew away the people after him. But he too perished, and all who believed in him were scattered.'

Concerning these very matters, Josephus—of whom we spoke above—in his history, in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities, [writes] in this manner: 'Now Quirinius, a man from the assembly of the Roman senate, having ascended through the several magistracies up to the rank of the consulship, and honorable also in other respects, came to Syria with a few, being sent by Caesar to administer justice to the nations. But Judas the Gaulanite, a man from the city of Gamala, taking to himself a certain Sadducee, a Pharisee, strove mightily to stir up the common people, asserting to them that the registration of the census imposed nothing other than the most manifest servitude, and at the same time exhorting his nation not to lose its liberty.' And in the second book of the Jewish War he writes concerning this same matter as follows:

'At which time,' he says, 'a certain Galilean man named Judas was driving the people to defection, persuading them that it would be utterly ruinous for them if they consented to pay tribute to the Romans and, after God, took up a mortal ruler'—[and thus] the kingdom obtained possession of the Jewish nation, and in it is fulfilled the prophecy which Moses had foretold beforehand, that a ruler should not fail from Judah. Concerning which the same Moses also declares that he himself is the expectation of the nations. For the fulfillment of this presage hung uncertain, so long as they were ruled under princes of their own nation, who, beginning from Moses himself who had foretold these things, [continued] down to the reign of Augustus—[when] a man of foreign race received from the Romans the principate of the Jews.

This Herod, according indeed to what Josephus relates, derived his paternal stock from the nation of the Idumeans, but the origin of his maternal blood from the Arabs. But Africanus, who is himself reckoned foremost among the historians, [says that a certain man] was the father of Herod of Ascalon, who himself was the son of a certain Herod, a temple-warden (aedituus) of the temple of Apollo. This Antipater, captured while yet a mere boy by Idumean brigands, remained with the robbers, for the reason that his father, through poverty of his household estate, was not able to ransom his son.

But the boy became a familiar of the high priest of the Jews, from whom is born this Herod who was to come to empire. Without doubt there was already impending that expectation of the nations foretold by prophetic voices, seeing that among them the succession of princes and kings, begun from the origin of Moses himself, had failed. For before—and thence too David—yea, before the kings, they were ruled by judges, who after Moses and Joshua his successor held the principate of that nation. But after the return from Babylon there was no lack of governance established by the best disciplines. For through the high priests the sum of affairs was administered, until [a foreign power] should pollute [each holy thing] of the temple, so that it did not even restrain hostile entry from the very sanctuaries themselves.

[He put to death] the one who by ancestral succession at that same time held at once both the kingship and the priesthood, Aristobulus by name. And he made the whole Jewish nation, from that time, tributary to the Roman empire. But when Hyrcanus—upon whom the last high priesthood of the Jewish nation had devolved—had been captured by the Parthians, first, as I said above, a man of foreign race, Herod, [received the principate] by decree of the senate while Augustus was reigning; [and] at the coming of the Savior, that awaited salvation and calling of the nations followed, according to what the prophets had foretold.

From which time indeed, the series of the succession of the leaders or princes who descended from the loins of Judah being interrupted, consequently the sacred order also [was interrupted]. You have on these matters too a competent witness in Josephus himself, who indicates that Herod, after the kingdom of the Jews was granted to him by the Romans, no longer appointed high priests according to the order of descent, but committed the priesthoods to sundry ignoble persons. He says that the Romans likewise received the same authority in ordaining priests. The same Josephus indicates that Herod even kept the sacred vestment of the high priest shut up under his own seal, and never permitted the high priests the use or the power over it.

This same practice his successor Archelaus [followed] as well; and after these the Romans too maintained the custom of this priestly outrage. Now let these things have been said by us, wishing to prove the truth of the prophecy which was fulfilled in the coming of our Lord and Savior. But also in the prophet Daniel the number of weeks, which is designated as extending until Christ the Leader, has evidently been fulfilled—concerning which we have expounded in other places. After the consummation of which weeks, that same prophet designates that the chrism (anointing), which was preserved as most sacred among the Jews, was to be abolished. Which indeed is proved to have been fulfilled most manifestly at that very time when our Lord Jesus Christ came.

Now let these things, related by us of great necessity, be held to demonstrate the truth of the times. But since the evangelists Matthew and Luke have handed down to us the generations of Christ variously, and are thought by very many to say things contrary to one another—wherein also some of the faithful, through ignorance of the truth, each attempt to bring forward certain fabrications on behalf of their own opinions—let us bring into the open concerning this too the account which has been transmitted down to us.

Africanus, of whom we made mention above, writing to a certain Aristides concerning the harmony of the Gospels and concerning the genealogies which are differently reported by Matthew and Luke, refutes indeed the opinions of the others as wandering far from the truth, but himself [sets forth] the account [thus]: 'Among the nation of Israel,' he says, 'the names of the generations are reckoned now according to nature, now also according to the order of the law. According to nature, indeed, are those successions which descend from the truth of seed or blood; but according to law, [it is] when one is substituted as another's son, the true father having begotten [him]. For since the hope [of resurrection] had not yet been received, through these things they imitated a certain image of the resurrection, so that the name of the family should not be blotted out by the defect of sterility.'

Since therefore among them such orders of generations were observed—that some [were reckoned] from the very seed, some by substitution begotten of others by others—the aforementioned succession is recorded in such a manner, that is, that one of the two [evangelists] should set forth him who had begotten, but the other him who was reckoned as if he had begotten. And so it comes about that neither Gospel lies, since one follows the order of nature, the other that of the law. For the lineage is joined back to itself mutually through the legal substitutions which were made for those who died without children, and no less through second marriages, whereby one and the same [man], begotten of one set of parents, appeared to be the son of others.

And so it comes about that each narrative of the generations is traced down to Joseph by most true lines. The generation from David through Solomon, which Matthew reckons, makes Matthan third from the end, who is said to have begotten Jacob, the father of Joseph. But Luke, weaving the order of the generations from David through Nathan, [makes] Heli third [from the end], who was [the son] of Melchi. It falls to us therefore to show how Joseph is said, according to Matthew indeed, to have had as father Jacob, who is traced through Solomon, but according to Luke, Heli, who is traced through Nathan; and how these same men—that is, Jacob and Heli, who were two coming from different lineages—should nevertheless both appear to be grandfathers of this Joseph. This then is the manner of it:

Matthan and Melchi, at different times, from one and the same wife named Estha, each begot a son; because Matthan, who descended through Solomon, had first taken her as wife, and, leaving one son, did not forbid her, [now widowed], to marry another man. Melchi, who traces his lineage through Nathan, being of the same tribe but not of the same family, took to wife the widow left by Matthan, from whom he too received a son named Heli. Whereby, from a different lineage of fathers, Jacob and Heli become brothers by the same mother (uterine brothers); of whom one, that is Jacob, taking by the command of the law the wife of his brother Heli who had died without children, begot Joseph—by nature indeed his own son of his own seed, on account of which it is also written:

'And Jacob begot Joseph'; but according to the precept of the law he becomes the son of Heli, whose wife Jacob—because he was his brother—had taken to raise up seed to his brother. And by this the generation is found to be valid and entire, both that which Matthew enumerates, saying: 'And Jacob begot Joseph,' and that which Luke designates with fitting observation, saying that he 'was supposed to be the son of Joseph, who was of Jacob.'

And he too, by the same distinction sounding in unison beneath the surface, will be supposed to be the son of Heli, who was of Melchi; because the evangelist, observing, designated this legal succession—which consists rather in a certain adoption, as it were, toward the deceased, than in the truth of natural offspring—by a sufficiently fitting indication, so as not at all in successions of this kind to name anyone as having 'begotten': whereby, not descending but ascending by a worthy distinction, he arrives all the way up to Adam and to God himself.

Now these things were not discovered by us on the spur of the moment, nor devised without any authorities; but these very kinsmen of our Savior according to the flesh, whether out of zeal to demonstrate so great a lineage, or to teach the things which [were handed down] according to truth, [transmitted them]. [Africanus relates that when the Idumeans] were plundering the [town] which clung to the wall of the city, and among the other spoils had also carried off captive Antipater, son of a certain Herod, a temple-warden, it afterward came to pass that Antipater came to the friendship of Hyrcanus the high priest; whose principate, because he had aided him in very many things, upon the death of this same Hyrcanus [passed to] his son Herod, who received the kingdom of the Jewish nation from the Romans through ambition. But these things are also set forth in other histories of the Greeks.

But this above all the aforementioned man handed down to memory: that at that same time all the generations of the Hebrews, recorded in the more secret archives of the temple, were preserved; in which were also contained the origins of any foreigners whatsoever, such as Achior of the Ammonites and Ruth of the Moabites, and others too from Egypt who are said to have been mingled with the Israelites. But Herod, when he held supreme power, seeing that indications of lineage of this kind, if they remained, would bring upon him very much obscuring [of his own descent], driven by the consciousness of his own low birth, ordered all the books in which the record of lineage was contained to be burned, thinking that he could appear noble if, being a newcomer and a stranger to the Israelite race, he were pressed by no bundles of records.

But there were then a few diligent and studious men who either had at home such books copied in some part, or even retained by memory the order of their ancestral lineage—especially those whom a nobility handed down from their forefathers admonished [to do so]. Among whom were also these, whom, on account of their kinship to Christ's lineage [I mention], who were also Nazareans from the village of Cochaba of the Jews, and who, going about through the whole region, taught thoroughly the order of the aforesaid generation, partly from memory, partly also from books of the days (annals), so far as was possible. These things having been thus investigated by us, so far as diligence could avail, most evidently [the Gospel is confirmed]. These are the things which we learned from Africanus. In this manner, then, [the descent terminates] in Joseph.

[Mary] should be of the same lineage and of the same tribe, since indeed according to the law of Moses it was not permitted to mingle marriages into different tribes, but it was enjoined that a woman be joined in marriage to one of the same people and of the same family, so that the lot of inheritance should not, by the mixing of wedlock, be brought into doubt. In the times of the aforesaid Herod, certain men from the nation of the Magi, coming from the parts of the East, inquire of Herod where [the newborn king was]; [asking about the star] which had appeared to them in the east and had become for them a guide of their journey; and [declaring] that the cause of so great a haste was to worship and venerate the newly born king. Which things when he had heard, he is incredibly terrified, fearing lest the standing of his empire should be endangered.

Having therefore summoned the teachers of the law, he inquires where they hoped that Christ should be born. And when, from the oracles of Micah, the place of his nativity was designated at Bethlehem, by a single command the king [ordered] all the suckling boys, not only at Bethlehem but also in all its borders, from two years old and under, [to be slain]—[hoping] that in this way he might also destroy Jesus along with those of the same age. But the child, carried off into Egypt, his parents having been warned of the treachery, forestalled the king's snares—as we are taught by the words of the Gospel. But it is worth the while [to show] how a divine vengeance was, before long, turned against the cruelty of Herod, which not only would bring present destruction upon him, but would also show with what punishments he was to be tormented after his death.

It would be tedious were I to recount the prosperities of his empire, in which up to that time he was powerful, obscured by domestic calamities; and if I were to relate the slaughter [of his sons], of his sister also and of all his kinsmen, it would seem woven rather as a tragedy than as a history. Concerning which, however, if anyone wishes to know, Josephus reports more fully. Therefore, since for the sacrilege which he had committed against the Savior, and the crime which he had perpetrated against those of the same age as him, the vengeance [came upon him]—if [we relate] these very words of Josephus himself in the seventeenth book of the Antiquities: 'Herod,' he says, 'moreover, a disease day by day the more bitter pressed upon him, exacting the penalties of the crime committed long ago. For with a slow fire he was burned outwardly upon the...'

[here follows a copyist's marginal note:] 'The scribe of his codex, from which P depends, understood from Matthew's narrative that Herod...' [Josephus continues:] '...upon the surface of the body, but within was hidden a vast conflagration. There was always in him an insatiable craving for food, nor yet could his gluttony ever satisfy itself, though roused with ravenous jaws—his inward parts hedged about with ulcers within, and he was tortured also with the greatest pains of the colon. A fluid and livid humor flowed about his swollen feet, and from the lower parts, distended with swelling up to the groin, his very private parts were putrefying; and an obscene enough and execrable itching-swelling [afflicted them]. Moreover, along with all these pains, a more dreadful stench was given off, whether from the putrefaction of his members or from the exhalation of his gasping breath.'

Thus, worn out on every side with torments, no strength could suffice for endurance. Those therefore who had skill in divination said that these were divinely inflicted penalties from the ruler on account of his many impious and cruel [deeds]. These things indeed the man of whom we made mention a little before reports in the aforesaid history. But also in the second book the same historian writes similar things no less concerning the same man, saying in this manner: 'But after these things a disease, invading his whole body, avenged itself upon him with a diverse kind of corruption.'

'For a fever afflicted [him] with a slow [heat] in one part; an intolerable itching in another part, spread over the whole surface of the body; a most frequent pain also of the colon; his feet up to the groin shuddered with dropsy; there were also inflations of a tortuous [flatulence] and frequent sighs of the viscera drawn up in violent convulsions—so that it was said by the seers that these were not [afflictions] of bodily disease, but the punishments of divine vengeance. And though he was pressed by so many diseases, even deadly ones, yet still cherishing a hope of living, he thought about medicines and remedies. At length, having crossed the Jordan, he made use of the warm waters which are at Callirrhoe, which are also said to be beneficial to those who drink them. It seemed good to the physicians also that his whole body should be bathed with warm oil.'

'And when he had been set down in a fomentation of this kind, he was so relaxed in all his members that even his very eyes [slipped] from their sockets. When he began to despair of recovery, he ordered fifty drachmas apiece to be distributed to the soldiers, and lavished very much money upon his commanders and friends. But he himself, now full of fury and, so to speak, threatening death itself, is carried into an execrable crime. For from each of the several villages or fortresses, whoever were the more noble and leading men, from all Judea, he ordered to be gathered to himself and shut up in the place which is called the hippodrome. Then, having summoned his sister Salome and her husband named Alexas...'

'I know,' he said, 'that the Jews will rejoice at my death; yet I can have mourners and an honorable funeral procession from a multitude of lamenters, if you are willing to obey my commands. All those nobles of all Judaea whom I have ordered to be held in custody — as soon as I have breathed out my spirit, slay them, with soldiers made ready for this very purpose, so that all Judaea and every house, even against its will, may weep at my passing.' Then again — for he was racked both by a craving for food and by the convulsions of a cough — when from the violence of his pains he perceived that the end of his life was now at hand, having received an apple he called for a knife, for he was accustomed to peel it himself; and looking about lest there be anyone to prevent him, he raised his right hand against himself and aimed the blow.

To this the same writer adds that, a little before he yielded up his last breath, he had a third son of his — after the two he had earlier put to death — cut down by his impious commands, and so fled from the light of day as though escaping punishment. Such then was the end of Herod, by which he paid a fitting penalty for the crime he had committed at Bethlehem against the little ones; and concerning the snares laid against us the Gospel fully instructs us, that after Joseph had been warned by an angel — 'hearing,' says the evangelist, 'that Archelaus reigned in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there,' and being warned in a dream 'he withdrew into the region of Galilee.'

In harmony with this evangelical truth the aforementioned historian too writes carefully these things: how, under Caesar Augustus, Archelaus became the successor to the kingdom of the Jews, and how after ten years he was stripped of his dominion, and how Philip and the younger Herod, together with Lysanias, held the kingdom of Judaea divided into tetrarchies; in the tenth year of Tiberius Caesar, who succeeded Augustus after fifty-seven years, and there for ten continuous years he endured almost to the very end of Tiberius.

From all of which the shameless fabrication of the 'Acts' is plainly convicted, those which, fashioned from a recent forgery, are put forth against Christ the Lord; in which, first of all, the very time — the seventh year of his reign — these false Acts assign as the time of the sacrilege committed against the Savior. At which time it is clearly shown that Pilate had not yet even been sent to the procuratorship of Judaea, according to the testimony of Josephus, that most approved historian, who most plainly writes of Pilate.

And in harmony with these the evangelist agrees with the historian, saying 'in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar' — in which was the fourth year of Pilate's procuratorship, when moreover Herod and Lysias and Philip were held as tetrarchs of Judaea — the Lord and Savior came to be baptized. For then indeed the beginning of the evangelical preaching took its course under the high priests Annas and Caiaphas, that is, extending into the pontificate of Annas; within which spaces scarcely a full four years are comprised.

Now the legal precepts were by that time ceasing through force and ambition, since the honor of the high priesthood was no longer rendered to the merit of life or of lineage, but by the Roman power the chief office of the priesthood was bestowed now on some, now on others, so that by yearly successions they were changed. Finally, this same Josephus records that four in order, down to Caiaphas, discharged the office of the high priesthood after Annas, writing in these words: 'Valerius Gratus, having thrust Annas from the priesthood, designated Ishmael as high priest, the son of Baphi. But casting him also out not long after, he substituted for the high priesthood Eleazar, son of the high priest Ananias.'

'But after a year he removed even this one from the office and handed over the ministry of the high priesthood to a certain Simon, son of Camith; and when he too had discharged it no longer than the space of a single year, he received as his successor Josephus, whose name was also Caiaphas.' And through all this time, in which the Lord and our Savior was upon the earth, those four successions of high priests which Josephus records are described as ministering, each scarcely for a single year. In agreement therefore with what Josephus writes, the Scripture of the Gospel also designates Caiaphas as high priest of that year in which the Savior suffered.

Therefore the Lord and our Savior, not long after the beginning of his preaching, took to himself twelve disciples out of all, whom, preferring them above his other followers by a certain special privilege of election, he named apostles — the meaning of which name indicates men who are sent. But he also chose others after these, seventy, whom likewise two by two through the several places and cities to which he himself was about to come [he sent forth]. [John was] beheaded by Herod, of which the Gospels indeed relate. And with concordant testimony Josephus too writes of this, mentioning by name also Herodias, as one violently torn from the marriage of Philip his brother while yet living, and joined to Herod in his incestuous nuptials, his own lawful wife having been driven away.

He says that this Herodias was the daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia, on whose account he also relates that John the Baptist was put to death by Herod. He says too that a war arose between Aretas and Herod, as though to avenge the dishonor done to the daughter; in which war he reports that Herod's army was destroyed, and that all these things befell him because of the sacrilege he committed in the murder of John. This same Josephus reports that John was the most just of all men, in accord with the faith of the Gospels, and that he was beheaded by Herod on account of Herodias; on whose account too Herod was driven from his kingdom and thrust into exile at Vienne, a city of Gaul.

These things he writes in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities, in the very words which are noted below: 'To some of the Jews,' he says, 'it seemed that Herod's army had perished for this reason, because divine vengeance was stirred against him quite justly, in requital for John, who was called the Baptist, whom Herod punished — a man exceedingly good, who charged the Jews to devote themselves to virtue, to keep justice one toward another and to maintain piety toward God, and by baptism to come together into one.'

'For in this way baptism would be acceptable, if it were received not only for the washing away of sins, but were also kept for the chastity of the body and for the justice and purification of the soul, and were held, as it were, as a seal of all the virtues alike and a certain faithful safeguard. And when these things were being taught by him through precepts of this kind, and a very great multitude thronged together to hear him, Herod, fearing lest perhaps by the persuasion of his teaching the people should revolt from their king — for he saw that the common folk were ready to obey his precepts and admonitions in all things — thought it better, before anything new should arise, to forestall the man by death, than afterwards, when affairs were in turmoil, to feel a too-late repentance.'

'Therefore, from mere suspicion of Herod, he is led away in chains to the fortress of Machaerus.' Thus far concerning John. But concerning the Lord the Savior also, in the same books of his histories, this same Josephus writes thus: '...whom it is right to name. For he was a worker of wonderful deeds and a teacher of those men who gladly hear the things that are true. And [he drew to himself] many... When Pilate had decreed that he should be led to the cross, upon the accusation of the chief men of our nation, those who from the beginning [had loved him] did not forsake him... for the prophets, divinely inspired, had foretold that these and countless other miracles concerning him were to come to pass. And even to this day the name and the race of the Christians, who are named from him, endures.'

[Seeing what testimony Josephus] has handed down both concerning John the Baptist and concerning our Lord and Savior — what refuge, what excuse will remain for the shameless and the faithless, that they should not be most openly convicted of the falsity of the deeds which they afterwards fabricated? But let these things suffice concerning these matters. [The names of the twelve apostles, however they may be reported,] are plain from all the Gospels themselves. But of the seventy disciples we have nowhere indeed found the names written; yet one of them is said to be Barnabas, of whom also mention is made in the Acts of the Apostles. And Paul too nonetheless remembers him in his writings. Indeed they say he is the one who, with Sosthenes and Paul, writes to the Corinthians. Clement, moreover, in the fourth book of the Dispositions, makes mention of Cephas, of whom Paul said:

'But when Cephas came to Antioch, I withstood him to his face' — and he says that he is one of the seventy disciples bearing the same name as Peter the apostle. He says too that Matthias was one of them, who was chosen by lot into the number of the apostles in place of Judas, and also the one who was appointed with him for the lot. Thaddaeus likewise they hand down was one of them, concerning whom I judge it necessary to set forth the history which has come down even to us. For you will find that there were also more disciples of the Savior than seventy... that the Lord [appeared] first indeed to Cephas, then to those eleven, and after these to more than five hundred brethren at once, of whom he says some had fallen asleep, but very many still remained at the time when he was writing.

Afterwards too he says that he was seen by James, who was one of those who were called the brothers of the Savior. Then next, as though besides these twelve, there were certain other apostles after their likeness — such as he himself also was — Paul adds and says: 'afterward he appeared to all the apostles, and last of all he was seen by me also.' And concerning these things the divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, when it was celebrated throughout every place on account of the marvelous work of his power, invited countless numbers, both of neighbors and of strangers and of those set far off, for the sake of the healings and the powers of cure, especially if any labored under the sickness of some disease.

Whence indeed a certain king named Abgar, nobly holding the principate of a nation situated beyond the Euphrates, was held by a certain bodily disease incurable, so far as lies among men. When he had heard of the name of Jesus and of his marvelous powers, becoming a suppliant to him by a letter, he entreated, sending a man for the purpose, to be released from the bonds of his long-standing disease by which he was held. But for the present indeed the cure of his body is deferred by the Lord; yet he is made worthy of a reply-letter from the Savior, in which at the same time it is also promised to him that not long after he would obtain the effect of his desire.

Finally, after the resurrection and ascension of the Lord to the heavens, Thomas the apostle, by divine admonition, sends a certain Thaddaeus, one of the seventy disciples, to the city of Edessa as an evangelist and preacher of the word of God, that he might at the same time fulfill also what had been promised by the Lord. These things we found so described in the public archives of the city of Edessa, in which at that time the aforesaid Abgar reigned — in those documents which preserved from ancient times contained the acts of King Abgar. And that the truth of the words may be made evident, [we have translated] the very copies of the letters themselves from the language of the Syrians... 'in the places of Jerusalem, greeting.'