Eusebius, Church History (1st Century A.D. – first half of the 4th century A.D.)

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Eusebius, Church History (1st Century A.D. – first half of the 4th century A.D.)

Book IV

Book IV.

1 About the twelfth year of the reign of Trajan the above-mentioned bishop of the parish of Alexandria died, and Primus, the fourth in succession from the apostles, was chosen to the office. 2At that time also Alexander, the fifth in the line of succession from Peter and Paul, received the episcopate at Rome, after Evarestus had held the office eight years.

1The teaching and the Church of our Saviour flourished greatly and made progress from day to day; but the calamities of the Jews increased, and they underwent a constant succession of evils. In the eighteenth year of Trajan’s reign there was another disturbance of the Jews, through which a great multitude of them perished.’ 2For in Alexandria and in the rest of Egypt, and also in Cyrene, as if incited by some terrible and factious spirit, they rushed into seditious measures against their fellow-inhabitants, the Greeks. The insurrection increased greatly, and in the following year, while Lupus was governor of all Egypt, it developed into a war of no mean magnitude. 3In the first attack it happened that they were victorious over the Greeks, who fled to Alexandria and imprisoned and slew the Jews that were in the city. But the Jews of Cyrene, although deprived of their aid, continued to plunder the land of Egypt and to devastate its districts, under the leadership of Lucuas. Against them the emperor sent Marcius Turbo with a foot and naval force and also with a force of cavalry. 4He carried on the war against them for a long time and fought many battles, and slew many thousands of Jews, not only of those of Cyrene, but also of those who dwelt in Egypt and had come to the assistance of their king Lucuas. 6But the emperor, fearing that the Jews in Mesopotamia would also make an attack upon the inhabitants of that country, commanded Lucius Quintus to clear the province of them. And he having marched against them slew a great multitude of those that dwelt there; and in consequence of his success he was made governor of Judea by the emperor. These events are recorded also in these very words by the Greek historians that have written accounts of those times.

1After Trajan had reigned for nineteen and a half years Aelius Adrian became his successor in the empire. To him Quadratus addressed a discourse containing an apology for our religion, because certain wicked men had attempted to trouble the Christians. The work is still in the hands of a great many of the brethren, as also in our own, and furnishes clear proofs of the man’s understanding and of his apostolic orthodox. 2He himself reveals the early date at which he lived in the following words: “But the works of our Saviour were always present, for they were genuine:-those that were healed, and those that were raised from the dead, who were seen not only when they were healed and when they were raised, but were also always present; and not merely while the Saviour was on earth, but also after his death, they were alive for quite a while, so that some of them lived even to our day.” Such then was Quadratus.

3Aristides also, a believer earnestly devoted to our religion, left, like Quadratus, an apology for the faith, addressed to Adrian. His work, too, has been preserved even to the present day by a great many persons.

In the third year of the same reign, Alexander, bishop of Rome, died after holding office ten years. His successor was Xystus. About the same time Primus, bishop of Alexandria, died in the twelfth year of his episcopate, and was succeeded by Justus.

The Bishops of Jerusalem from the Age of Our Saviour
Lo the Period Under Consideration.

1The chronology of the bishops of Jerusalem I have nowhere found preserved in writing; for tradition says that they were all short lived. 2But I have learned this much from writings, that until the siege of the Jews, which took place under Adrian, there were fifteen bishops in succession there. all of whom are said to have been of Hebrew descent, and to have received the knowledge of Christ in purity, so that they were approved by those who were able to judge of such matters, and were deemed worthy of the episcopate. For their whole church consisted then of believing Hebrews who continued from the days of the apostles until the siege which took place at this time; in which siege the Jews, having again rebelled against the Romans, were conquered after severe battles. 3But since the bishops of the circumcision ceased at this time, it is proper to give here a list of their names from the beginning. The first, then, was James, the so-called brother of the Lord; the second, Symeon; the third, Justus; the fourth, Zacchaeus; the fifth, Tobias; the sixth, Benjamin; the seventh, John; the eighth, Matthias; the ninth, Philip; the tenth, Seneca; the eleventh, Justus; the twelfth, Levi; the thirteenth, Ephres; the fourteenth, Joseph; and finally, the fifteenth, Judas. 4These are the bishops ofJerusalem that lived between the age of the apostles and the time referred to, all of them belonging to the circumcision.

5In the twelfth year of the reign of Adrian, Xystus, having completed the tenth year of his episcopate,¹ was succeeded by Telesphorus,² the seventh in succession from the apostles. In the meantime, after the lapse of a year and some months, Eumenes,³ the sixth in order, succeeded to the leadership of the Alexandrian church, his predecessor having held office eleven years.⁴

1 As the rebellion of the Jews at this timegrew much more serious,⁵ Rufus, governor of Judea, after an auxiliary force had been sent him by the emperor, using their madness as a pretext, proceeded against them without mercy, and destroyed indiscriminately thousands of men and women and children, and in accordance with the laws of war reduced their country to a state of complete subjection.

2 The leader of the Jews at this time was a man by the name of Barcocheba⁶ (which signifies a star), who possessed the character of a robber and a murderer, but nevertheless, relying upon his name, boasted to them, as if they were slaves, that he possessed wonderful powers; and he pretended that he was a star that had come down to them out of heaven to bring them light in the midst of their misfortunes.

3 The war raged most fiercely in the eighteenth year of Adrian,⁷ at the city of Bithara,⁸ which was a very secure fortress, situated not far from Jerusalem. When the siege had lasted a long time, and the rebels had been driven to the last extremity by hunger and thirst, and the instigator of the rebellion had suffered his just punishment, the whole nation was prohibited from this time on by a decree, and by the commands of Adrian, from ever going up to the country about Jerusalem. For the emperor gave orders that they should not even see from a distance the land of their fathers. Such is the account of Aristo of Pella.⁹

4 And thus, when the city had been emptied of the Jewish nation and had suffered the total destruction of its ancient inhabitants, it was colonized by a different race, and the Roman city which subsequently arose changed its name and was called Aelia, in honor of the emperor Aelius Adrian. And as the church there was now composed of Gentiles, the first one to assume the government of it after the bishops of the circumcision was Marcus.¹⁰

The Persons that Became at that Time
Leaders of Knowledge Falsely So-Called.¹¹

1 As the churches throughout the world were now shining like the most brilliant stars, and faith in our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ was flourishing among the whole human race,¹² the demon who hates everything that is good, and is always hostile to the truth, and most bitterly opposed to the salvation of man,turned all his arts against the Church.¹³ In the beginning he armed himself against it with external persecutions.

2 But now, being shut off from the use of such means,¹⁴ he devised all sorts of plans, and employed other methods in his conflict with the Church, using base and deceitful men as instruments for the ruin of souls and as ministers of destruction. Instigated by him, impostors and deceivers, assuming the name of our religion, brought to the depth of ruin such of the believers as they could win over, and at the same time, by means of the deeds which they practiced, turned away from the path which leads to the word of salvation those who were ignorant of the faith.

3 Accordingly there proceeded from that Menander, whom we have already mentioned as the successor of Simon,¹⁵ a certain serpent-like power, double-tongued and two-headed, which produced the leaders of two different heresies, Saturninus, an Antiochian by birth,¹⁶ and Basilides, an Alexandrian.¹⁷ The former of these established schools of godless heresy in Syria, the latter in Alexandria.

4 Irenaeus states¹⁸ that the false teaching of Saturninus agreed in most respects with that of Menander, but that Basilides, under the pretext of unspeakable mysteries, invented monstrous fables, and carried the fictions of his impious heresy quite beyond bounds.

5 But as there were at that time a great many members of the Church¹⁹ who were fighting for the truth and defending apostolic and ecclesiastical doctrine with uncommon eloquence, so there were some also that furnished posterity through their writings with means of defense against the heresies to which we have referred.²⁰

6 Of these there has come down to us a most powerful refutation of Basilides by Agrippa Castor,²¹ one of the most renowned writers of that day, which shows the terrible imposture of the man.

7 While exposing his mysteries he says that Basilides wrote twenty-four books upon the Gospel,²² and that he invented prophets for himself named Barcabbas and Barcoph,²³ and others that had no existence, and that he gave them barbarous names in order to amaze those who marvel at such things; that he taught also that the eating of meat offered to idols and the unguarded renunciation of the faith in times of persecution were matters of indifference;²⁴ and that he enjoined upon his followers, like Pythagoras, a silence of five years.²⁵

8 Other similar things the above-mentioned writer has recorded concerning Basilides, and has ably exposed the error of his heresy.

9 Irenaeus also writes²⁶ that Carpocrates was a contemporary of these men, and that he was the father of another heresy, called the heresy of the Gnostics,²⁷ who did not wish to transmit any longer the magic arts of Simon, as that one²⁸ had done, in secret, but openly.²⁹ For they boasted - as of something great - of love potions that were carefully prepared by them, and of certain demons that sent them dreams and lent them their protection, and of other similar agencies; and in accordance with these things they taught that it was necessary for those who wished to enter fully into their mysteries, or rather into their abominations, to practice all the worst kinds of wickedness, on the ground that they could escape the cosmic powers, as they called them, in no other way than by discharging their obligations to them all by infamous conduct.

10 Thus it came to pass that the malignant demon, making use of these ministers, on the one hand enslaved those that were so pitiably led astray by them to their own destruction, while on the other hand he furnished to the unbelieving heathen abundant opportunities for slandering the divine word, inasmuch as the reputation of these men brought infamy upon the whole race of Christians.

11 In this way, therefore, it came to pass that there was spread abroad in regard to us among the unbelievers of that age, the infamous and most absurd suspicion that we practiced unlawful commerce with mothers and sisters, and enjoyed impious feasts.³⁰

12 He did not, however, long succeed in these artifices, as the truth established itself and in time shone with great brilliancy.

13 For the machinations of its enemies were refuted by its power and speedily vanished. One new heresy arose after another, and the former ones always passed away, and now at one time, now at another, now in one way, now in other ways, were lost in ideas of various kinds and various forms. But the splendor of the catholic and only true Church, which is always the same, grew in magnitude and power, and reflected its piety and simplicity and freedom, and the modesty and purity of its inspired life and philosophy to every nation both of Greeks and of Barbarians.

14 At the same time the slanderous accusations which had been brought against the whole Church³¹ also vanished, and there remained our teaching alone, which has prevailed over all, and which is acknowledged to be superior to all in dignity and temperance, and in divine and philosophical doctrines. So that none of them now ventures to affix a base calumny upon our faith, or any such slander as our ancient enemies formerly delighted to utter.

15 Nevertheless, in those times the truth again called forth many champions who fought in its defense against the godless heresies, refuting them not only with oral, but also with written arguments.³²

1 Among these Hegesippus was well known.³³ We have already quoted his words a number of times,³⁴ relating events which happened in the time of the apostles according to his account.

2 He records in five books the true tradition of apostolic doctrine in a most simple style, and he indicates the time in which he flourished when he writes as follows concerning those that first set up idols: “To whom they erected cenotaphs and temples, as is done to the present day. Among whom is also Antinoüs,³⁵ a slave of the Emperor Adrian, in whose honor are celebrated also the Antinoian games, which were instituted in our day. For he [i.e. Adrian] also founded a city named after Antinoüs,³⁶ and appointed prophets.”

3 At the same time also Justin, a genuine lover of the true philosophy, was still continuing to busy himself with Greek literature.³⁷ He indicates this time in the Apology which he addressed to Antonine, where he writes as follows:³⁸ “We do not think it out of place to mention here Antinoüs also, who lived in our day, and whom all were driven by fear to worship as a god, although they knew who he was and whence he came.”

4 The same writer, speaking of the Jewish war which took place at that time, adds the following:³⁹ “For in the late Jewish war Barcocheba, the leader of the Jewish rebellion, commanded that Christians alone⁴⁰ should be visited with terrible punishments unless they would deny and blaspheme Jesus Christ.”

5 And in the same work he shows that his conversion from Greek philosophy to Christianity⁴¹ was not without reason, but that it was the result of deliberation on his part. His words are as follows:⁴² “For I myself, while I was delighted with the doctrines of Plato, and heard the Christians slandered, and saw that they were afraid neither of death nor of anything else ordinarily looked upon as terrible, concluded that it was impossible that they could be living in wickedness and pleasure. For what pleasure-loving or intemperate man, or what man that counts it good to feast on human flesh, could welcome death that he might be deprived of his enjoyments, and would not rather strive to continue permanently his present life, and to escape the notice of the rulers, instead of giving himself up to be put to death?”

6 The same writer, moreover, relates that Adrian having received from Serennius Granianus,⁴³ a most distinguished governor, a letter⁴⁴ in behalf of the Christians, in which he stated that it was not just to slay the Christians without a regular accusation and trial, merely for the sake of gratifying the outcries of the populace, sent a rescript⁴⁵ to Minucius Fundanus,⁴⁶ proconsul of Asia, commanding him to condemn no one without an indictment and a well-grounded accusation.

7 And he gives a copy of the epistle, preserving the original Latin in which it was written,⁴⁷ and prefacing it with the following words:⁴⁸ “Although from the epistle of the greatest and most illustrious Emperor Adrian, your father, we have good ground to demand that you order judgment to be given as we have desired, yet we have asked this not because it was ordered by Adrian, but rather because we know that what we ask is just. And we have subjoined the copy of Adrian’s epistle that you may know that we are speaking the truth in this matter also. And this is the copy.”

8 After these words the author referred to gives the rescript in Latin, which we have translated into Greek as accurately as we could.⁴⁹ It reads as follows:

The Epistle of Adrian,
Decreeing that We Should Not Be Punished Without a Trial.

1 “To Minucius Fundanus. I have received an epistle,⁵⁰ written to me by Serennius Granianus, a most illustrious man, whom you have succeeded. It does not seem right to me that the matter should be passed by without examination, lest the men⁵¹ be harassed and opportunity be given to the informers for practicing villainy.

2 If, therefore, the inhabitants of the province can clearly sustain this petition against the Christians so as to give answer in a court of law, let them pursue this course alone, but let them not have resort to men’s petitions and outcries. For it is far more proper, if any one wishes to make an accusation, that you should examine into it.

3 If any one therefore accuses them and shows that they are doing anything contrary to the laws, do you pass judgment according to the heinousness of the crime.⁵² But, by Hercules! if any one bring an accusation through mere calumny, decide in regard to his criminality,⁵³ and see to it that you inflict punishment.”⁵⁴

Adrian having died after a reign of twenty-one years,⁵⁵ was succeeded in the government of the Romans by Antoninus, called the Pious. In the first year of his reign Telesphorus⁵⁶ died in the eleventh year of his episcopate, and Hyginus became bishop of Rome.⁵⁷ Irenaeus records that Telesphorus’ death was made glorious by martyrdom,⁵⁸ and in the same connection he states that in the time of the above-mentioned Roman bishop Hyginus, Valentinus, the founder of a sect of his own, and Cerdon, the author of Marcion’s error, were both well known at Rome.⁵⁹ He writes as follows:⁶⁰

1 “For Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, flourished under Pius, and remained until Anicetus.⁶¹ Cerdon⁶² also, Marcion’s cion’s predecessor, entered the Chruch in the time of Hyginus, the ninth bishop, and made confession, and continued in this way, now teaching in secret, now making confession again, and now denounced for corrupt doctrine and withdrawing from the assembly of the brethren.”

2These words are found in the third book of the work Against Heresies. And again in the first book he speaks as follows concerning Cerdon: “A certain Cerdon, who had taken his system fromt he followers of Simon, and had come to Rome under Hyginus, the ninth in the episcopal succession from the apostles, taught that the God proclaimed by the law and prophets was not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former was known, but hte latter unknown; and the former was just, but the latter good. Marcion of Pontus succeeded Cerdon and developed his doctrine, uttering shameless blasphemies.” 3The same Irenaeus unfolds with the greates vigor the unfathomable abyss of Valentinus’ errors in regard to matter, and reveals his wickedness, secret and hidden like a serpent lurking in its nest. 4And in addition ot these men he says that there was also another that lived in that age, Marcus by name, who was remarkably skilled in magic arts. And he describes also their unholy initiations and their abominable mysteries in the following words: “For some of them prepare a nuptial couch an dperform a mystic rite with certain forms of expression addressed to those who are being initiated, and they say that it is a spiritual marriage which is celebrated by them, after the likeness of the marriages above. but others lead them to water, and while they baptize them they repeat the following words: Into the name of the unknown father of the universe, into truth, the mother of all things, into the one that descended upon Jesus. Others repeat Hebrew names in order the better to confound those whoa re being initiated.”

6But Hyginus having died at the close of the fourth year of his episcopate, Pius succeeded him in the government of the church of Rome. In Alexandria Marcus was appointed pastor, after Eumenes had filled the office thirteen years in all. And Marcus having died after holding office ten years was succeeded by Celadion in the government of the church of Alexandria. 7And in Rome Pius died in the fifteenth year of his episcopate, and Anicetus assumed the leadership of the Christians there. Hegesippus records that he himself was in Rome at this time, and that he remained there until the episcopate of Eleutherus.

8But Justin was especially prominent in those days. In the guise of a philospher he preached the divine word, and contended for the faith in his writings. He wrote also a work against Marcion, in which he states that the latter was alive at the time he wrote. 9He speaks as follows: “And there is a certain Marcion of Pontus, who is even now still teaching his followers to think that there is some other God greater than the creator. And by the aid of the demons he has persuaded many of every race of men to utter blasphemy, and to deny that the maker of this universe is the father of Christ, and to confess that someother, greater than he, was the creator. And all who followed them are, as we have said, called Christians, just as the name of philosophy is given to philosphers, although they may have no doctrines in common.” 10To this he adds: “And we have also written a work against all the heresies that have existed, which we will give you if you wish to read it.”

But this same justin contended most successfully against the Greeks, and addressed discourses containing an apology for our faith to the Emperor Antonius, called Pius, and to the Roman senate. For he lived at Rome. But who and whence he was he shows in hi Apology in the following words.Chapter Xiithe Apology of Justin addressed to Antonius

“To the Emperor Titus Aelius Adrian Antoninus Pius Caesar Augustus, and to Verissimus his son, the philosopher, and to Lucius the philospher, own son of Caesar and adopted son of Pius, a lover of learning, and to the sacred senate and to the whole Roman people, I , Justin, son of Priscus and grandson of Bacchius, of Flavia Neapolis in Palestine, Syria, present this address and petition in behalf of those men of every nation who are unjustly hated and persecuted, I myself being one of them.” And the same emperor having learned also from other brethren in Asia of the injuries of all kinds which they were suffering from the inhabitants of hte province, thought it proper to address the following ordinance to the Common Assembly of Asia.Chapter Xiiithe Epistle of Antoninus to the Common Assembly of Asia in Regard to our Doctine.

1The Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, Armenicus, Pontifex Maximus, fo rthe fifteenth time Tribuine, for the third time Consul, to the Common Assembly of Asia, Greeting. 2I know that the gods also take care that such persons do not escape detection. For they would much rather punish those who will not worship them than you would. 3But you throw them into confusion, and while you accuse them of atheism you only confirm them in the opinion which they hold. It would indeed be more desirable for them, when accused, to appear to die for their God, than to live. Wherefore also they come off victorius when they give up their lives rather than yield obedience to your commands. 4And in regard to the eqrthquakes which have been and are still taking place, it is not improper to admonish you who lose heart whenever they occur, and nevertheless are accustomed to compare your conduct with theirs. 5They indeed become the more confident in God, while you, during the whle time, neglect, in apparent ignorance, the other gods and the worship of the Immortal, and oppress and persecute even unto death the Christians who worship him. 6But in regard to these persons, many of the governors of the provinces wrote also to our most divine father, to whome he wrote in reply that they should not trouble these people unless it should appear that they were attempting something affecting the Roman government. And to me also may have sent communications concerning these men, but I have replied to them in the same way that my father did. 7But if any one still persists in bringing accusations against any of these people as such, the person who is accused shall be acquitted of the charge, even if it appear that he is one of them, but the accuser shall be punished. Published in Ephesus in the Common Assembly of Asia.” 8To these things Melito, bishop of hte church of Sardis, and a man well known at that time, is a witness, as is clear from his words in the Apology which he addressed to the Emperor Verus in behalf of our doctrine. Chapter Xivthe Circumstances related of Polycarp, a Friend of the Apostles.

1At this time, while Anicetus was at the head of the church of Rome, Irenaeus relates that Polycarp, who was still alive, was at Rome, and that he had a conference with Anicetus on a question concerning the day of the paschal feast. 2And the same writer gives another account of Polycarp which I feel constrained to add to that which has been already related in regard to him. The account is taken fromthe third book of Irenaeus’ work Against Heresies, and is as follows: 3"But Polycarp also was not only instructed by the apostles, and acquainted with many that had seen Christ, but was also appointed by apostles in Asia bishop of the church of Smyrna. 4We too saw him in our early youth; for he lived a long time, and died, when a very old man, a glorious and most illustrious martyr’s death,having always taught the things which he had learned form the apostles, which the Church also hands down, and which alone are true. 5To these things all the Asiatic churches testify, as do also those who, down to the present time, have succeeded Polycarp, who was a much more trustworthy and certain witness of ht truth thatn Valentinus and Marcion and the rest of the heretics. He also was in Rome in the time of Anicetus and caused many to turn away from the above-mentioned heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received fromthe apostles thisone and only system of truth which has been transmittted by the Church. 6And there are those that heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe in Ephesus and seeing Cerinthus within, ran out of the bath-house without bathing, crying, ‘Let us flee, lest even the bath fall, because Cerinthus, the enemy of hte truth, is within.’ 7And Polycarp himself, when Marcion once met him and said, ‘Knowest thou us?’ replied, ‘I know the first born of Satan.’ Such caution did the apostles nd their disciples exercise that they might not even converse with any of those who perverted the truth; as Paul also said, ‘A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.’ 8There is also a very powerful epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those that wish to do so, and that are concerned for their own salvation, may learn the character of his faith and the preaching of the truth.” Such is the account of Irenaeus. 9But Polycarp, in his above-mentioned epistle to the Philippians, which is still extant, has made use of certain testimonies drawn from the First Epistle of Peter.

10And when Antoninus, called Pius, had completed the twenty-second year of his reign, Marcus Aurelius Verus, his son, who was also called Antoninus, succeeded him, together with his brother Lucius.Chapter Xvunder Verus, Polycarp with Others suffered Martyrdom as Smyrna.

1At this time, when the greatest persecutions were exciting Asia, Polycarp ended his life by martyrdom. But I consider it most important that his death, a written account of which is still extant, should be recorded in this history. 2There is a letter, written in the name of the church over which he himself presided, to the parishes in Pontus, which relates the events that befell him, in the following words: 3"The church of God which dwelleth in Philomelium, and to all the parishes of the holy catholic Church in every place; mercy and peace and love from God the Father be multiplied. We write unto you, brethren, an account of what happened to htose that suffered martyrdom and to the blessed Polycarp, who put an end to the persecution, having, as it were, sealed it his martyrdom.”

4 After these words, before giving the account of Polycarp, they record the events which befell the rest of the martyrs, and describe the great firmness which they exhibited in the midst of their pains. For they say that the bystanders were struck with amazement when they saw them lacerated with scourges even to the innermost veins and arteries, so that the hidden inward parts of the body, both their bowels and their members, were exposed to view; and then laid upon sea-shells and certain pointed spits, and subjected to every species of punishment and of torture, and finally thrown as food to wild beasts.

5 And they record that the most noble Germanicus⁶³ especially distinguished himself, overcoming by the grace of God the fear of bodily death implanted by nature. When indeed the proconsul⁶⁴ wished to persuade him, and urged his youth, and besought him, as he was very young and vigorous, to take compassion on himself, he did not hesitate, but eagerly lured the beast toward himself, all but compelling and irritating him, in order that he might the sooner be freed from their unrighteous and lawless life.

6 After his glorious death the whole multitude marveling at the bravery of the God-beloved martyr and at the fortitude of the whole race of Christians, began to cry out suddenly, “Away with the atheists;⁶⁵ let Polycarp be sought.”

7 And when a very great tumult arose in consequence of the cries, a certain Phrygian, Quintus⁶⁶ by name, who was newly come from Phrygia, seeing the beasts and the additional tortures, was smitten with cowardice and gave up the attainment of salvation.

8 But the above-mentioned epistle shows that he, too hastily and without proper discretion, had rushed forward with others to the tribunal, but when seized had furnished a clear proof to all, that it is not right for such persons rashly and recklessly to expose themselves to danger. Thus did matters turn out in connection with them.

9 But the most admirable Polycarp, when he first heard of these things, continued: undisturbed, preserved a quiet and unshaken mind, and determined to remain in the city. But being persuaded by his friends who entreated and exhorted him to retire secretly, he went out to a farm not far distant from the city and abode there with a few companions, night and day doing nothing but wrestle with the Lord in prayer, beseeching and imploring, and asking peace for the churches throughout the whole world. For this was always his custom.

10 And three days before his arrest, while he was praying, he saw in a vision at night the pillow under his head suddenly seized by fire and consumed; and upon this awakening he immediately interpreted the vision to those that were present, almost foretelling that which was about to happen, and declaring plainly to those that were with him that it would be necessary for him for Christ’s sake to die by fire.

11 Then, as those who were seeking him pushed the search with vigor, they say that he was again constrained by the solicitude and love of the brethren to go to another farm. Thither his pursuers came after no long time, and seized two of the servants there, and tortured one of them for the purpose of learning from him Polycarp’s hiding-place.

12 And coming late in the evening, they found him lying in an upper room, whence he might have gone to another house, but he would not, saying, “The will of God be done.”

13 And when he learned that they were present, as the account says, he went down and spoke to them with a very cheerful and gentle countenance, so that those who did not already know the man thought that they beheld a miracle when they observed his advanced age and the gravity and firmness of his bearing, and they marveled that so much effort should be made to capture a man like him.

14 But he did not hesitate, but immediately gave orders that a table should be spread for them. Then he invited them to partake of a bounteous meal, and asked of them one hour that he might pray undisturbed. And when they had given permission, he stood up and prayed, being full of the grace of the Lord, so that those who were present and heard him praying were amazed, and many of them now repented that such a venerable and godly old man was about to be put to death.

15 In addition to these things the narrative concerning him contains the following account: “But when at length he had brought his prayer to an end, after remembering all that had ever come into contact with him, small and great, famous and obscure, and the whole catholic Church throughout the world, the hour of departure being come, they put him upon an ass and brought him to the city, it being a great Sabbath.⁶⁷ And he was met by Herod,⁶⁸ the captain of police,⁶⁹ and by his father Nicetes, who took him into their carriage, and sitting beside him endeavored to persuade him, saying, ‘For what harm is there in saying, Lord Caesar, and sacrificing and saving your life?’ He at first did not answer; but when they persisted, he said, ‘I am not going to do what you advise me.’

16 And when they failed to persuade him, they uttered dreadful words, and thrust him down with violence, so that as he descended from the carriage he lacerated his shin. But without turning round, he went on his way promptly and rapidly, as if nothing had happened to him, and was taken to the stadium.

17 But there was such a tumult in the stadium that not many heard a voice from heaven, which came to Polycarp as he was entering the place: ‘Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man.’⁷⁰ And no one saw the speaker, but many of our people heard the voice.

18 And when he was led forward, there was a great tumult, as they heard that Polycarp was taken. Finally, when he came up, the proconsul asked if he were Polycarp. And when he confessed that he was, he endeavored to persuade him to deny, saying, ‘Have regard for thine age,’ and other like things, which it is their custom to say: ‘Swear by the genius of Caesar;⁷¹ repent and say, Away with the Atheists.’

19 But Polycarp, looking with dignified countenance upon the whole crowd that was gathered in the stadium, waved his hand to them, and groaned, and raising his eyes toward heaven, said, ‘Away with the Atheists.’

20 But when the magistrate pressed him, and said, ‘Swear, and I will release thee; revile Christ,’ Polycarp said, ‘Fourscore and six years⁷² have I been serving him, and he hath done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my king who saved me?’

21 “But when he again persisted, and said, ‘Swear by the genius of Caesar,’ Polycarp replied, ‘If thou vainly supposest that I will swear by the genius of Caesar, as thou sayest, feigning to be ignorant who I am, hear plainly: I am a Christian. But if thou desirest to learn the doctrine of Christianity, assign a day and hear.’

22 The proconsul said, ‘Persuade the people.’ But Polycarp said, ‘As for thee, I thought thee worthy of an explanation; for we have been taught to render to princes and authorities ordained by God the honor that is due,⁷³ so long as it does not injure us;⁷⁴ but as for these, I do not esteem them the proper persons to whom to make my defense.’⁷⁵

23 But the proconsul said, ‘I have wild beasts; I will throw thee to them unless thou repent.’ But he said, ‘Call them; for repentance from better to worse is a change we cannot make. But it is a noble thing to turn from wickedness to righteousness.’

24 But he again said to him, ‘If thou despisest the wild beasts, I will cause thee to be consumed by fire, unless thou repent.’ But Polycarp said, ‘Thou threatenest a fire which burneth for an hour, and after a little is quenched; for thou knowest not the fire of the future judgment and of the eternal punishment which is reserved for the impious. But why dost thou delay? Do what thou wilt.’

25 Saying these and other words besides, he was filled with courage and joy, and his face was suffused with grace, so that not only was he not terrified and dismayed by the words that were spoken to him, but, on the contrary, the proconsul was amazed, and sent his herald to proclaim three times in the midst of the stadium: ‘Polycarp hath confessed that he is a Christian.’

26 And when this was proclaimed by the herald, the whole multitude, both of Gentiles and of Jews,⁷⁶ who dwelt in Smyrna, cried out with ungovernable wrath and with a great shout, ‘This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the overthrower of our gods, who teacheth many not to sacrifice nor to worship.’

27 When they had said this, they cried out and asked the Asiarch Philip⁷⁷ to let a lion loose upon Polycarp. But he said that it was not lawful for him, since he had closed the games. Then they thought fit to cry out with one accord that Polycarp should be burned alive.

28 For it was necessary that the vision should be fulfilled which had been shown him concerning his pillow, when he saw it burning while he was praying, and turned and said prophetically to the faithful that were with him, ‘I must needs be burned alive.’

29 These things were done with great speed, -more quickly than they were said,-the crowds immediately collecting from the workshops and baths timber and fagots, the Jews being especially zealous in the work, as is their wont.

30 But when the pile was ready, taking off all his upper garments, and loosing his girdle, he attempted also to remove his shoes, although he had never before done this, because of the effort which each of the faithful always made to touch his skin first; for he had been treated with all honor on account of his virtuous life even before his gray hairs came.

31 Forthwith then the materials prepared for the pile were placed about him; and as they were also about to nail him to the stake,⁷⁸ he said, ‘Leave me thus; for he who hath given me strength to endure the fire, will also grant me strength to remain in the fire unmoved without being secured by you with nails.’ So they did not nail him, but bound him.

32 And he, with his hands behind him, and bound like a noble ram taken from a great flock, an acceptable burnt-offering unto God omnipotent, said, ‘Father of thy beloved and blessed Son⁷⁹ Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the knowledge of thee, the God of angels and of powers and of the whole creation and of the entire race of the righteous who live in thy presence, I bless thee that thou hast deemed me worthy of this day and hour, that I might receive a portion in the number of the martyrs, in the cup of Christ, unto resurrection of eternal life,⁸⁰ both of soul and of body, in the immortality of the Holy Spirit.

34 Among these may I be received before thee this day, in a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as thou, the faithful and true God, hast beforehand prepared and revealed, and hast fulfilled. Wherefore I praise thee also for everything; I bless thee, I glorify thee,through the eternal high priest, Jesus Christ, thy beloved Son, through whom, with him, in the Holy Spirit, be glory unto thee, both now and for the ages to come, Amen.’

36 When he had offered up his Amen and had finished his prayer, the firemen lighted the fire and as a great flame blazed out, we, to whom it was given to see, saw a wonder, and we were preserved that we might relate what happened to the others. For the fire presented the appearance of a vault, like the sail of a vessel filled by the wind, and made a wall about the body of the martyr,⁸¹ and it was in the midst not like flesh burning, but like gold and silver refined in a furnace. For we perceived such a fragrant odor, as of the fumes of frankincense or of some other precious spices.

38 So at length the lawless men, when they saw that the body could not be consumed by the fire, commanded an executioner⁸² to approach and pierce him with the sword. And 39 when he had done this there came forth a quantity of blood⁸³ so that it extinguished the fire; and the whole crowd marveled that there should be such a difference between the unbelievers and the elect, of whom this man also was one, the most wonderful teacher in our times, apostolic and prophetic, who was bishop of the catholic Church⁸⁴ in Smyrna. For every word which came from his mouth was accomplished and will be accomplished.

40 But the jealous and envious Evil One, the adversary of the race of the righteous, when he saw the greatness of his martyrdom, and his blameless life from the beginning, and when he saw him crowned with the crown of immortality and bearing off an incontestable prize, took care that not even his body should be taken away by us, although many desired to do it and to have communion with his holy flesh.

41 Accordingly certain ones secretly suggested to Nicetes, the father of Herod and brother of Alce,⁸⁵ that he should plead with the magistrate not to give up his body, ‘lest,’ it was said, ‘they should abandon the crucified One and begin to worship this man.’⁸⁶ They said these things at the suggestion and impulse of the Jews, who also watched as we were about to take it from the fire, not knowing that we shall never be able either to forsake Christ, who suffered for the salvation of the whole world of those that are saved, or to worship any other.

42 For we worship him who is the Son of God, but the martyrs, as disciples and imitators of the Lord, we love as they deserve on account of their matchless affection for their own king and teacher. May we also be made partakers and fellow-disciples with them.

43 The centurion, therefore, when he saw the contentiousness exhibited by the Jews, placed him in the midst and burned him, as was their custom. And so we afterwards gathered up his bones. which were more valuable than precious stones and more to be esteemed than gold, and laid them in a suitable place.

44 There the Lord will permit us to come together as we are able, in gladness and joy to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom,⁸⁷ for the commemoration of those who have already fought and for the training and preparation of those who shall hereafter do the same.

45 Such are the events that befell the blessed Polycarp, who suffered martyrdom in Smyrna with the eleven⁸⁸ from Philadelphia. This one man is remembered more than the others by all, so that even by the heathen he is talked about in every place.”

46 Of such an end was the admirable and apostolic Polycarp deemed worthy, as recorded by the brethren of the church of Smyrna in their epistle which we have mentioned. In the same volume⁸⁹ concerning him are subjoined also other martyrdoms which took place in the same city, Smyrna, about the same period of time with Polycarp’s martyrdom. Among them also Metrodorus, who appears to have been a proselyte of the Marcionitic sect, suffered death by fire.

47 A celebrated martyr of those times was a certain man named Pionius. Those who desire to know his several confessions, and the boldness of his speech, and his apologies in behalf of the faith before the people and the rulers, and his instructive addresses and moreover, his greetings to those who had yielded to temptation in the persecution, and the words of encouragement which he addressed to the brethren who came to visit him in prison, and the tortures which he endured in addition, and besides these the sufferings and the nailings, and his firmness on the pile, and his death after all the extraordinary trials,⁹⁰ -those we refer to that epistle which has been given in the Martyrdoms of the Ancients,⁹¹ collected by us, and which contains a very full account of him.

48 And there are also records extant of others that suffered martyrdom in Pergamus, a city of Asia,-of Carpus and Papylus, and a woman named Agathonice, who, after many and illustrious testimonies, gloriously ended their lives.⁹²

Justin the Philosopher Preaches the Word of Christ
in Rome and Suffers Martyrdom.

1 About this time⁹³ Justin, who was mentioned by us just above,⁹⁴ after he had addressed a second work in behalf of our doctrines to the rulers already named,⁹⁵ was crowned with divine martyrdom,⁹⁶ in consequence of a plot laid against him by Crescens,⁹⁷ a philosopher who emulated the life and manners of the Cynics, whose name he bore. After Justin had frequently refuted him in public discussions he won by his martyrdom the prize of victory, dying in behalf of the truth which he preached.

2 And he himself, a man most learned in the truth, in his Apology already referred to⁹⁸ clearly predicts how this was about to happen to him, although it had not yet occurred.

3 His words are as follows:⁹⁹ “I, too,¹⁰⁰ therefore, expect to be plotted against and put in the stocks¹⁰¹ by some one of those whom I have named, or perhaps by Crescens, that unphilosophical and vainglorious man. For the man is not worthy to be called a philosopher who publicly bears witness against those concerning whom he knows nothing, declaring, for the sake of captivating and pleasing the multitude, that the Christians are atheistical and impious.¹⁰²

4 Doing this he errs greatly. For if he assails us without having read the teachings of Christ, he is thoroughly depraved, and is much worse than the illiterate, who often guard against discussing and bearing false witness about matters which they do not understand. And if he has read them and does not understand the majesty that is in them, or, understanding it, does these things in order that he may not be suspected of being an adherent, he is far more base and totally depraved, being enslaved to vulgar applause and irrational fear.

5 For I would have you know that when I proposed certain questions of the sort and asked him in regard to them, I learned and proved that he indeed knows nothing. And to show that I speak the truth I am ready, if these disputations have not been reported to you, to discuss the questions again in your presence. And this indeed would be an act worthy of an emperor.

6 But if my questions and his answers have been made known to you, it is obvious to you that he knows nothing about our affairs; or if he knows, but does not dare to speak because of those who hear him, he shows himself to be, as I have already said,¹⁰³ not a philosopher, but a vainglorious man, who indeed does not even regard that most admirable saying of Socrates.”¹⁰⁴ These are the words of Justin.

7 And that he met his death as he had predicted that he would, in consequence of the machinations of Crescens, is stated by Tatian,¹⁰⁵ a man who early in life lectured upon the sciences of the Greeks and won no little fame in them, and who has left a great many monuments of himself in his writings. He records this fact in his work against the Greeks, where he writes as follows:¹⁰⁶ “And that most admirable Justin declared with truth that the aforesaid persons were like robbers.”

8 Then, after making some remarks about the philosophers, he continues as follows:¹⁰⁷ “Crescens, indeed, who made his nest in the great city, surpassed all in his unnatural lust, and was wholly devoted to the love of money.

9 And he who taught that death should be despised, was himself so greatly in fear of it that he endeavored to inflict death, as if it were a great evil, upon Justin, because the latter, when preaching the truth, had proved that the philosophers were gluttons and impostors.” And such was the cause of Justin’s martyrdom.

1 The same man, before his conflict, mentions in his first Apology¹⁰⁸ others that suffered martyrdom before him, and most fittingly records the following events.

2 He writes thus:¹⁰⁹ “A certain woman lived with a dissolute husband; she herself, too, having formerly been of the same character. But when she came to the knowledge of the teachings of Christ, she became temperate, and endeavored to persuade her husband likewise to be temperate, repeating the teachings, and declaring the punishment in eternal fire which shall come upon those who do not live temperately and conformably to right reason.

3 But he, continuing in the same excesses, alienated his wife by his conduct. For she finally, thinking it wrong to live as a wife with a man who, contrary to the law of nature and right, sought every possible means of pleasure, desired to be divorced from him.

4 And when she was earnestly entreated by her friends, who counseled her still to remain with him, on the ground that her husband might some time give hope of amendment, she did violence to herself and remained.

5 But when her husband had gone to Alexandria, and was reported to be conducting himself still worse, she-in order that she might not, by continuing in wedlock, and by sharing his board and bed, become a partaker in his lawlessness and impiety-gave him what we¹¹⁰ call a bill of divorce and left him.

6 But her noble and excellent husband,-instead of rejoicing, as he ought to have done, that she had given up those actions which she had formerly recklessly committed with the servants and hirelings, when she delighted in drunkenness and in every vice, and that she desired him likewise to give them up,-when she had gone from him contrary to his wish, brought an accusation concerning her, declaring that she was a Christian.

7 And she petitioned you, the emperor, that she might be permitted first to set her affairs in order, and afterwards, after the settlement of her affairs, to make her defense against the accusation. And this you granted.

8 But he who had once been her husband, being no longer able to prosecute her, directed his attacks against a certain Ptolemaeus,¹¹¹ who had been her teacher in the doctrines of Christianity, and whom Urbicius¹¹² had punished. Against him he proceeded in the following manner:

9 “He persuaded a centurion who was his friend to cast Ptolemaeus into prison, and to take him and ask him this only: whether he were a Christian? And when Ptolemaeus, who was a lover of truth, and not of a deceitful and false disposition, confessed that he was a Christian, the centurion bound him and punished him for a long time in the prison.

10 And finally, when the man was brought before Urbicius he was likewise asked this question only: whether he were a Christian? And again, conscious of the benefits which he enjoyed through the teaching of Christ, he confessed his schooling in divine virtue.

11 For whoever denies that he is a Christian, either denies because he despises Christianity, or he avoids confession because he is conscious that he is unworthy and an alien to it; neither of which is the case with the true Christian.

12 And when Urbicius commanded that he be led away to punishment, a certain Lucius,¹¹³ who was also a Christian, seeing judgment so unjustly passed, said to Urbicius, ‘Why have you punished this man who is not an adulterer, nor a fornicator, nor a murderer, nor a thief, nor a robber, nor has been convicted of committing any crime at all, but has confessed that he bears the name of Christian? You do not judge, O Urbicius, in a manner befitting the Emperor Pius, or the philosophical son¹¹⁴ of Caesar, or the sacred senate.’ And without making any other reply, he said to Lucius, ‘Thou also seemest to me to be such an one.’ And when Lucius said, ‘Certainly,’ he again commanded that he too should be led away to punishment. But he professed his thanks, for he was liberated, he added, from such wicked rulers and was going to the good Father and King, God. And still a third having come forward was condemned to be punished.”

14 To this, Justin fittingly and consistently adds the words which we quoted above,¹¹⁵ saying, “I, too, therefore expect to be plotted against by some one of those whom I have named,” &c.¹¹⁶

1 This writer has left us a great many monuments of a mind educated and practiced in divine things, which are replete with profitable matter of every kind. To them we shall refer the studious, noting as we proceed those that have come to our knowledge.¹¹⁷

2 There is a certain discourse¹¹⁸ of his in defense of our doctrine addressed to Antoninus surnamed the Pious, and to his sons, and to the Roman senate. Another work contains his second Apology¹¹⁹ in behalf of our faith, which he offered to him who was the successor of the emperor mentioned and who bore the same name, Antoninus Verus, the one whose times we are now recording.

3 Also another work against the Greeks,¹²⁰ in which he discourses at length upon most of the questions at issue between us and the Greek philosophers, and discusses the nature of demons. It is not necessary for me to add any of these things here.

4 And still another work of his against the Greeks has come down to us, to which he gave the title Refutation. And besides these another, On the Sovereignty of God,¹²¹ which he establishes not only from our Scriptures, but also from the books of the Greeks. Still further, a work entitled Psaltes,¹²² and another disputation On the Soul, in which, after propounding various questions concerning the problem under discussion, he gives the opinions of the Greek philosophers, promising to refute it, and to present his own view in another work.

6 He composed also a dialogue against the Jews,¹²³ which he held in the city of Ephesus with Trypho, a most distinguished man among the Hebrews of that day. In it he shows how the divine grace urged him on to the doctrine of the faith, and with what earnestness he had formerly pursued philosophical studies, and how ardent a search he had made for the truth.¹²⁴

7 And he records of the Jews in the same work, that they were plotting against the teaching of Christ, asserting the same things against Trypho: “Not only did you not repent of the wickedness which you had committed, but you selected at that time chosen men, and you sent them out from Jerusalem through all the land, to announce that the godless heresy of the Christians had made its appearance, and to accuse them of those things which all that are ignorant of us say against us, so that you become the causes not only of your own injustice, but also of all other men’s.”¹²⁵

8 He writes also that even down to his time prophetic gifts shone in the Church.¹²⁶ And he mentions the Apocalypse of John, saying distinctly that it was the apostle’s.¹²⁷ He also refers to certain prophetic declarations, and accuses Trypho on the ground that the Jews had cut them out of the Scripture.¹²⁸ A great many other works of his are still in the hands of many of the brethren.¹²⁹

9 And the discourses of the man were thought so worthy of study even by the ancients, that Irenaeus quotes his words: for instance, in the fourth book of his work Against Heresies, where he writes as follows:¹³⁰ “And Justin well says in his work against Marcion, that he would not have believed the Lord himself if he had preached another God besides the Creator"; and again in the fifth book of the same work he says:¹³¹ “And Justin well said that before the coming of the Lord Satan never dared to blaspheme God,¹³² because he did not yet know his condemnation.”

10 These things I have deemed it necessary to say for the sake of stimulating the studious to peruse his works with diligence. So much concerning him.

1 In the eighth year of the above-mentioned reign¹³³ Soter¹³⁴ succeeded Anicetus¹³⁵ as bishop of the church of Rome, after the latter had held office eleven years in all. But when Celadion¹³⁶ had presided over the church of Alexandria for fourteen years he was succeeded by Agrippinus.¹³⁷

1 At that time also in the church of Antioch, Theophilus¹³⁸ was well known as the sixth from the apostles. For Cornelius,¹³⁹ who succeeded Hero,¹⁴⁰ was the fourth, and after him Eros,¹⁴¹ the fifth in order, had held the office of bishop.

1 At that time there flourished in the Church Hegesippus, whom we know from what has gone before,¹⁴² and Dionysius,¹⁴³ bishop of Corinth, and another bishop, Pinytus of Crete,¹⁴⁴ and besides these, Philip,¹⁴⁵ and Apolinarius,¹⁴⁶ and Melito,¹⁴⁷ and Musanus,¹⁴⁸ and Modestus,¹⁴⁹ and finally, Irenaeus.¹⁵⁰ From them has come down to us in writing, the sound and orthodox faith received from apostolic tradition.¹⁵¹

1 Hegesippus in the five books of Memoirs¹⁵² which have come down to us has left a most complete record of his own views. In them he states that on a journey to Rome he met a great many bishops, and that he received the same doctrine from all. It is fitting to hear what he says after making some remarks about the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians.

2 His words are as follows: “And the church of Corinth continued in the true faith until Primus¹⁵³ was bishop in Corinth. I conversed with them on my way to Rome, and abode with the Corinthians many days, during which we were mutually refreshed in the true doctrine.

3 And when I had come to Rome I remained a there until Anicetus,¹⁵⁴ whose deacon was Eleutherus. And Anicetus was succeeded by Soter, and he by Eleutherus. In every succession, and in every city that is held which is preached by the law and the prophets and the Lord.”

4 The same author also describes the beginnings of the heresies which arose in his time, in the following words: “And after James the Just had suffered martyrdom, as the Lord had also on the same account, Symeon, the son of the Lord’s uncle, Clopas,¹⁵⁵ was appointed the next bishop. All proposed him as second bishop because he was a cousin of the Lord. “Therefore,¹⁵⁶ they called the Church a virgin, for it was not yet corrupted by vain discourses.

5 But Thebuthis,¹⁵⁷ because he was not made bishop, began to corrupt it. He also was sprung from the seven sects¹⁵⁸ among the people, like Simon,¹⁵⁹ from whom came the Simonians, and Cleobius,¹⁶⁰ from whom came the Cleobians, and Dositheus,¹⁶¹ from whom came the Dositheans, and Gorthaeus,¹⁶² from whom came the Goratheni, and Masbotheus,¹⁶³ from whom came the Masbothaeans. From them sprang the Menandrianists,¹⁶⁴ and Marcionists,¹⁶⁵ and Carpocratians, and Valentinians, and Basilidians, and Saturnilians. Each introduced privately and separately his own peculiar opinion. From them came false Christs, false prophets, false apostles, who divided the unity of the Church by corrupt doctrines uttered against God and against his Christ.”

6 The same writer also records the ancient heresies which arose among the Jews, in the following words: “There were, moreover, various opinions in the circumcision, among the children of Israel. The following were those that were opposed to the tribe of Judah and the Christ: Essenes, Galileans, Hemerobaptists, Masbothaeans, Samaritans, Sadducees, Pharisees.”¹⁶⁶

7 And he wrote of many other matters, which we have in part already mentioned, introducing the accounts in their appropriate places. And from the Syriac Gospel according to the Hebrews he quotes some passages in the Hebrew tongue,¹⁶⁷ showing that he was a convert from the Hebrews,¹⁶⁸ and he mentions other matters as taken from the unwritten tradition of the Jews.

8 And not only he, but also Irenaeus and the whole company of the ancients, called the Proverbs of Solomon All-virtuous Wisdom.¹⁶⁹ And when speaking of the books called Apocrypha, he records that some of them were composed in his day by certain heretics. But let us now pass on to another.

1 And first we must speak of Dionysius, who was appointed bishop of the church in Corinth, and communicated freely of his inspired labors not only to his own people, but also to those in foreign lands, and rendered the greatest service to all in the catholic epistles which he wrote to the churches.

2 Among these is the one addressed to the Lacedaemonians,¹⁷¹ containing instruction in the orthodox faith and an admonition to peace and unity; the one also addressed to the Athenians, exciting them to faith and to the life prescribed by the Gospel, which he accuses them of esteeming lightly, as if they had almost apostatized from the faith since the martyrdom of their ruler Publius,¹⁷² which had taken place during the persecutions of those days.

3 He mentions Quadratus¹⁷³ also, stating that he was appointed their bishop after the martyrdom of Publius, and testifying that through his zeal they were brought together again and their faith revived. He records, moreover, that Dionysius the Areopagite,¹⁷⁴ who was converted to the faith by the apostle Paul, according to the statement in the Acts of the Apostles,¹⁷⁵ first obtained the episcopate of the church at Athens.

4 And there is extant another epistle of his addressed to the Nicomedians,¹⁷⁶ in which he attacks the heresy of Marcion, and stands fast by the canon of the truth.

5 Writing also to the church that is in Gortyna,¹⁷⁷ together with the other parishes in Crete, he commends their bishop Philip,¹⁷⁸ because of the many acts of fortitude which are testified to as performed by the church under him, and he warns them to be on their guard against the aberrations of the heretics.

6 And writing to the church that is in Amastris,¹⁷⁹ together with those in Pontus, he refers to Bacchylides¹⁸⁰ and Elpistus, as having urged him to write, and he adds explanations of passages of the divine Scriptures, and mentions their bishop Palmas¹⁸¹ by name. He gives them much advice also in regard to marriage and chastity, and commands them to receive those who come back again after any fall, whether it be delinquency or heresy.¹⁸²

7 Among these is inserted also another epistle addressed to the Cnosians,¹⁸³ in which he exhorts Pinytus, bishop of the parish, not to lay upon the brethren a grievous and compulsory burden in regard to chastity, but to have regard to the weakness of the multitude.

8 Pinytus, replying to this epistle, admires and commends Dionysius, but exhorts him in turn to impart some time more solid food, and to feed the people under him, when he wrote again, with more advanced teaching, that they might not be fed continually on these milky doctrines and imperceptibly grow old under a training calculated for children. In this epistle also Pinytus’ orthodoxy in the faith and his care for the welfare of those placed under him, his learning and his comprehension of divine things, are revealed as in a most perfect image.

9 There is extant also another epistle written by Dionysius to the Romans, and addressed to Soter,¹⁸⁴ who was bishop at that time. We cannot do better than to subjoin some passages from this epistle, in which he commends the practice of the Romans which has been retained down to the persecution in our own days. His words are as follows:

10 “For from the beginning it has been your practice to do good to all the brethren in various ways, and to send contributions to many churches in every city. Thus relieving the want of the needy, and making provision for the brethren in the mines by the gifts which you have sent from the beginning, you Romans keep up the hereditary customs of the Romans, which your blessed bishop Soter has not only maintained, but also added to, furnishing an abundance of supplies to the saints, and encouraging the brethren from abroad with blessed words, as a loving father his children.”

11 In this same epistle he makes mention also of Clement’s epistle to the Corinthians,¹⁸⁵ showing that it had been the custom from the beginning to read it in the church. His words are as follows: “To-day we have passed the Lord’s holy day, in which we have read your epistle. From it, whenever we read it, we shall always be able to draw advice, as also from the former epistle, which was written to us through Clement.”

12 The same writer also speaks as follows concerning his own epistles, alleging that they had been mutilated: “As the brethren desired me to write epistles, I wrote. And these epistles the apostles of the devil have filled with tares, cutting out some things and adding others.¹⁸⁶ For them a woe is reserved.¹⁸⁷ It is, therefore, not to be wondered at if some have attempted to adulterate the Lord’s writings also,¹⁸⁸ since they have formed designs even against writings which are of less accounts.”¹⁸⁹

There is extant, in addition to these, another epistle of Dionysius, written to Chrysophora,¹⁹⁰ a most faithful sister. In it he writes what is suitable, and imparts to her also the proper spiritual food. So much concerning Dionysius.

1 Of Theophilus,¹⁹¹ whom we have mentioned as bishop of the church of Antioch,¹⁹² three elementary works addressed to Autolycus are extant; also another writing entitled Against the Heresy of Hermogenes,¹⁹³ in which he makes use of testimonies from the Apocalypse of John, and finally certain other catechetical books.¹⁹⁴

2 And as the heretics, no less then than at other times, were like tares, destroying the pure harvest of apostolic teaching, the pastors of the churches everywhere hastened to restrain them as wild beasts from the fold of Christ, at one time by admonitions and exhortations to the brethren, at another time by contending more openly against them in oral discussions and refutations, and again by correcting their opinions with most accurate proofs in written works.

3 And that Theophilus also, with the others, contended against them, is manifest from a certain discourse of no common merit written by him against Marcion.¹⁹⁵ This work too, with the others of which we have spoken, has been preserved to the present day.

Maximinus,¹⁹⁶ the seventh from the apostles, succeeded him as bishop of the church of Antioch.

1 Philip who, as we learn from the words of Dionysius,¹⁹⁷ was bishop of the parish of Gortyna, likewise wrote a most elaborate work against Marcion,¹⁹⁸ as did also Irenaeus¹⁹⁹ and Modestus.²⁰⁰ The last named has exposed the error of the man more clearly than the rest to the view of all. There are a number of others also whose works are still presented by a great many of the brethren.

1 In those days also Melito,²⁰¹ bishop of the parish in Sardis, and Apolinarius,²⁰² bishop of Hierapolis, enjoyed great distinction. Each of them on his own part addressed apologies in behalf of the faith to the above-mentioned emperor²⁰³ of the Romans who was reigning at that time.

2 The following works of these writers have come to our knowledge. Of Melito,²⁰⁴ the two books On the Passover,²⁰⁵ and one On the Conduct of Life and the Prophets,²⁰⁶ the discourse On the Church,²⁰⁷ and one On the Lord’s Day,²⁰⁸ still further one On the Faith of Man,²⁰⁹ and one On his Creation,²¹⁰ another also On the Obedience of Faith, and one On the Senses;²¹¹ besides these the work On the Soul and Body,²¹² and that On Baptism,²¹³ and the one On Truth,²¹⁴ and On the Creation and Generation of Christ;²¹⁵ his discourse also On Prophecy,²¹⁶ and that On Hospitality;²¹⁷ still further, The Key,²¹⁸ and the books On the Devil and the Apocalypse of John,²¹⁹ and the work On the Corporeality of God,²²⁰ and finally the book addressed to Antoninus.²²¹

3 In the books On the Passover he indicates the time at which he wrote, beginning with these words: “While Servilius Paulus was proconsul of Asia, at the time when Sagaris suffered martyrdom, there arose in Laodicea a great strife concerning the Passover, which fell according to rule in those days; and these were written.”²²²

4 And Clement of Alexandria refers to this work in his own discourse On the Passover,²²³ which, he says, he wrote on occasion of Melito’s work.

5 But in his book addressed to the emperor he records that the following events happened to us under him: “For, what never before happened,²²⁴ the race of the pious is now suffering persecution, being driven about in Asia by new decrees. For the shameless informers and coveters of the property of others, taking occasion from the decrees, openly carry on robbery night and day, despoiling those who are guilty of no wrong.” And a little further on he says: “If these things are done by thy command, well and good. For a just ruler will never take unjust measures; and we indeed gladly accept the honor of such a death.

6 But this request alone we present to thee, that thou wouldst thyself first examine the authors of such strife, and justly judge whether they be worthy of death and punishment, or of safety and quiet. But if, on the other hand, this counsel and this new decree, which is not fit to be executed even against barbarian enemies, be not from thee, much more do we beseech thee not to leave us exposed to such lawless plundering by the populace.”

7 Again he adds the following:²²⁵ “For our philosophy formerly flourished among the Barbarians; but having sprung up among the nations under thy rule, during the great reign of thy ancestor Augustus, it became to thine empire especially a blessing of auspicious omen. For from that time the power of the Romans has grown in greatness and splendor. To this power thou hast succeeded, as the desired possessor,²²⁶ and such shalt thou continue with thy son, if thou guardest the philosophy which grew up with the empire and which came into existence with Augustus; that philosophy which thy ancestors also honored along with the other religions.

8 And a most convincing proof that our doctrine flourished for the good of an empire happily begun, is this-that there has no evil happened since Augustus’ reign, but that, on the contrary, all things have been splendid and glorious, in accordance with the prayers of all.

9 Nero and Domitian, alone, persuaded by certain calumniators, have wished to slander our doctrine, and from them it has come to pass that the falsehood²²⁷ has been handed down, in consequence of an unreasonable practice which prevails of bringing slanderous accusations against the Christians.²²⁸

10 But thy pious fathers corrected their ignorance, having frequently rebuked in writing²²⁹ many who dared to attempt new measures against them. Among them thy grandfather Adrian appears to have written to many others, and also to Fundanus,²³⁰ the proconsul and governor of Asia. And thy father, when thou also wast ruling with him, wrote to the cities, forbidding them to take any new measures against us; among the rest to the Larissaeans, to the Thessalonians, to the Athenians, and to all the Greeks.²³¹

11 And as for thee,-since thy opinions respecting the Christians²³² are the same as theirs, and indeed much more benevolent and philosophic,-we are the more persuaded that thou wilt do all that we ask of thee.” These words are found in the above-mentioned work.

12 But in the Extracts²³³ made by him the same writer gives at the beginning of the introduction a catalogue of the acknowledged books of the Old Testament, which it is necessary to quote at this point. He writes as follows:

13 “Melito to his brother Onesimus,²³⁴ greeting: Since thou hast often, in thy zeal for the word, expressed a wish to have extracts made from the Law and the Prophets concerning the Saviour and concerning our entire faith, and hast also desired to have an accurate statement of the ancient book, as regards their number and theirorder, I have endeavored to perform the task, knowing thy zeal for the faith, and thy desire to gain information in regard to the word, and knowing that thou, in thy yearning after God, esteemest these things above all else, struggling to attain eternal salvation.

14 Accordingly when I went East and came to the place where these things were preached and done, I learned accurately the books of the Old Testament, and send them to thee as written below. Their names are as follows: Of Moses, five books: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus,²³⁵ Deuteronomy; Jesus Nave, Judges, Ruth; of Kings, four books; of Chronicles, two; the Psalms of David,²³⁶ the Proverbs of Solomon, Wisdom also,²³⁷ Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job; of Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah; of the twelve prophets, one book²³⁸ ; Daniel, Ezekiel, Esdras.²³⁹ From which also I have made the extracts, dividing them into six books.” Such are the words of Melito.

1 A Number of works of Apolinarius²⁴⁰ have been preserved by many, and the following have reached us: the Discourse addressed to the above-mentioned emperor,²⁴¹ five books Against the Greeks,²⁴² On Truth, a first and second book,²⁴³ and those which he subsequently wrote against the heresy of the Phrygians,²⁴⁴ which not long afterwards came out with its innovations,²⁴⁵ but at that time was, as it were, in its incipiency, since Montanus, with his false prophetesses, was then laying the foundations of his error.

1 And as for Musanus,²⁴⁶ whom we have mentione among the foregoing writers, a certain very elegant discourse is extant, which was written by him against some brethren that had gone over to the heresy of the so-called Encratites,²⁴⁷ which had recently sprung up, and which introduced a strange and pernicious error. It is said that Tatian was the author of this false doctrine.

1 He is the one whose words we quoted a little above²⁴⁹ in regard to that admirable man, Justin, and whom we stated to have been a disciple of the martyr. Irenaeus declares this in the first book of his work Against Heresies, where he writes as follows concerning both him and his heresy:²⁵⁰

2 “Those who are called Encratites,²⁵¹ and who sprung from Saturninus²⁵² and Marcion, preached celibacy, setting aside the original arrangement of God and tacitly censuring him who made male and female for the propagation of the human race. They introduced also abstinence from the things called by them animate,²⁵³ thus showing ingratitude to the God who made all things. And they deny the salvation of the first man.²⁵⁴

3 But this has been only recently discovered by them, a certain Tatian being the first to introduce this blasphemy. He was a hearer of Justin, and expressed no such opinion while he was with him, but after the martyrdom of the latter he left the Church, and becoming exalted with the thought of being a teacher, and puffed up with the idea that he was superior to others, he established a peculiar type of doctrine of his own, inventing certain invisible aeons like the followers of Valentinus,²⁵⁵ while, like Marcion and Saturninus, he pronounced marriage to be corruption and fornication. His argument against the salvation of Adam, however, he devised for himself.” Irenaeus at that time wrote thus.

4 But a little later a certain man named Severus²⁵⁶ put new strength into the aforesaid heresy, and thus brought it about that those who took their origin from it were called, after him, Severians.

5 They, indeed, use the Law and Prophets and Gospels, but interpret in their own way the utterances of the Sacred Scriptures. And they abuse Paul the apostle and reject his epistles, and do not accept even the Acts of the Apostles.

6 But their original founder, Tatian, formed a certain combination and collection of the Gospels, I know not how,²⁵⁷ to which he gave the title Diatessaron,²⁵⁸ and which is still in the l hands of some. But they say that he ventured to paraphrase certain words of the apostle,²⁵⁹ in order to improve their style.

7 He has left a great many writings. Of these the one most in use among many persons is his celebrated Address to the Greeks,²⁶⁰ which also appears to be the best and most useful of all his works. In it he deals with the most ancient times, and shows that Moses and the Hebrew prophets were older than all the celebrated men among the Greeks.²⁶¹ So much in regard to these men.

1 In the same reign, as heresies were abounding in the region between the rivers,²⁶² a certain Bardesanes,²⁶³ a most able man and a most skillful disputant in the Syriac tongue, having composed dialogues against Marcion’s followers and against certain others who were authors of various opinions, committed them to writing in his own language, together with many other works. His pupils,²⁶⁴ of whom he had very many (for he was a powerful defender of the faith), translated these productions from the Syriac into Greek.

2 Among them there is also his most able dialogue On Fate,²⁶⁵ addressed to Antoninus, and other works which they say he wrote on occasion of the persecution which arose at that time.²⁶⁶

3 He indeed was at first a follower of Valentinus,²⁶⁷ but afterward, having rejected his teaching and having refuted most of his fictions, he fancied that he had come over to the more correct opinion. Nevertheless he did not entirely wash off the filth of the old heresy.²⁶⁸

About this time also Soter,²⁶⁹ bishop of the church of Rome, departed this life.

³⁸⁷ek twn bibliwn. These words have been interpreted by many critics as implying that Papias considered the written Gospel accounts, which were extant in his time, of small value, and preferred to them the oral traditions which he picked up from “the elders.” But as Lightfoot has shown (ibid. p. 390 sq.), this is not the natural interpretation of Papias’ words, and makes him practically stultify and contradict himself. He cannot have considered the written documents which he laid at the base of his work as of little value, nor can he have regarded the writings of Matthew and Mark, which he refers to in this chapter as extant in his time, and the latter of which he praises for its accuracy, as inferior to the oral traditions, which came to him at best only at second hand. It is necessary to refer the twn bibliwn, as Lightfoot does, to “interpretations” of the Gospel accounts, which had been made by others, and to which Papias prefers the interpretations or expositions which he has received from the disciples of the apostles. This interpretation of the word alone saves us from difficulties and Papias from self-stultification.

³⁸⁹The existence of two tombs in Ephesus bearing the name of John is attested also by Dionysius of Alexandria (quoted in Bk. VII. chap. 25, below) and by Jerome (de vir. ill. c. 9). The latter, however, says that some regard them both as memorials of the one John, the apostle; and Zahn, in his Acta Joannis, p. cliv. sq., endeavors to prove that a church stood outside of the walls of Ephesus, on the spot where John was buried, and another inside of the walls, on the site of the house in which he had resided, and that thus two spots were consecrated to the memory of a single John. The proof which he brings in support of this may not lead many persons to adopt his conclusions, and yet after reading his discussion of the matter one must admit that the existence of two memorials in Ephesus, such as Dionysius, Eusebius, and Jerome refer to, by no means proves that more than one John was buried there.

³⁹⁰A similar suggestion had been already made by Dionysius in the passage quoted by Eusebius in Bk. VII. chap. 25, and Eusebius was undoubtedly thinking of it when he wrote these words. The suggestion is a very clever one, and yet it is only a guess, and does not pretend to be more. Dionysius concludes that the Apocalypse must have been written by some person named John, because it testifies to that fact itself; but the style, and other internal indications, lead him to think that it cannot have been written by the author of the fourth Gospel, whom he assumes to be John the apostle. He is therefore led to suppose that the Apocalypse was written by some other John. He does not pretend to say who that John was, but thinks it must have been some John that resided in Asia; and he then adds that there were said to be two tombs in Ephesus bearing the name of John,-evidently implying, though he does not say it, that he is inclined to think that this second John thus commemorated was the author of the Apocalypse. It is plain from this that he had no tradition whatever in favor of this theory, that it was solely an hypothesis arising from critical difficulties standing in the way of the ascription of the book to the apostle John. Eusebius sees in this suggestion a very welcome solution of the difficulties with which he feels the acceptance of the book to be beset, and at once states it as a possibility that this “presbyter John,” whom he has discovered in the writings of Papias, may have been the author of the book. But the authenticity of the Apocalypse was too firmly established to be shaken by such critical and theological difficulties as influenced Dionysius, Eusebius, and a few others, and in consequence nothing came of the suggestion made here by Eusebius. In the present century, however, the “presbyter John” has again played an important part among some critics as the possible author of certain of the Johannine writings, though the authenticity of the Apocalypse has (until very recently) been so commonly accepted even by the most negative critics that the “presbyter John” has not figured at all as the author of it; nor indeed is he likely to in the future.

³⁹¹In chap. 31, above. On the confusion of the evangelist with the apostle Philip, see that chapter, note 6.

³⁹⁴Compare the extract from Papias given by Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. V. 32), in which is contained a famous parable in regard to the fertility of the millennium, which is exceedingly materialistic in its nature, and evidently apocryphal. “The days will come when vines shall grow, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each twig ten thousand shoots, and in every one of the shoots ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five and twenty measures of wine,” &c.

³⁹⁵Chiliasm, or millennarianism,-that is, the belief in a visible reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years before the general judgment, -was very widespread in the early Church. Jewish chiliasm was very common at about the beginning of the Christian era, and is represented in the voluminous apocalyptic literature of that day. Christian chiliasm was an outgrowth of the Jewish, but spiritualized it, and fixed it upon the second, instead of the first, coming of Christ. The chief Biblical support for this doctrine is found in Rev. xx. 1-6, and the fact that this book was appealed to so constantly by chiliasts in support of their views was the reason why Dionysius, Eusebius, and others were anxious to disprove its apostolic authorship. Chief among the chiliasts of the ante-Nicene age were the author of the epistle of Barnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian; while the principal opponents of the doctrine were Caius, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, and Eusebius. After the time of Constantine, chiliasm was more and more widely regarded as a heresy, and received its worst blow from Augustine, who framed in its stead the doctrine, which from his time on was commonly accepted in the Church, that the millennium is the present reign of Christ, which began with his resurrection. See Schaff’s Church History, II. p. 613 sq., for the history of the doctrine in the ante-Nicene Church and for the literature of the subject.

³⁹⁶sfodra smikroz ton noun. Eusebius’ judgment of Papias may have been unfavorably influenced by his hostility to the strongchiliasm of he latter; and yet a perusal of the extant fagments of Papias’ writings wiil lead any one to think that Eusebius was not far wrong in his estimate of the man. On the genuineness of the words in his praise, given by some mss., in chap. 36, §2, see note 3 on that chapter.

³⁹⁸We cannot, in the abscence of the context, say with certainty that the presbyter here refered to is the “presbyter John,” of whom Papias has so much to say, and who ia mentioned in the previous paragraph, and yet this seems quite probable. Compare Weiffenbach’s Die Papias Fragmente über Marcus und Mattaeus, p. 26 sq.

³⁹⁹Papias is the first one to connect the Gospel of Mark wih Peter, but the tradition recorded by him was universally accepted by tshose who came after him (see above, Bk. II. chap. 15, note 4). The relation of this Gospel of Mark to our canonical ospel has been a very sharply disputed point, but there is no good reason for distinguishing the Gospel referred to here from our second Gospel which corresponds excellently to the description given by Papias. Compare the remarks of Lightfoot, ibid. p. 393 sq. We know from other sources (e.g. Justin Martyr’s Dial. c. 106) that our second Gospel was in existence in any case before the middle of the second century, and therefore there is no reason to suppose that Papias was thinking of any other Gospel when he spoke of the Gospel written by Mark as the interpreter of Peter. Of course it does not follow from this that it was actually our second Gospel which Mark wrote, and of whose composition Papias here speaks. He may have written a Gospel which afterward formed the basis of our present Gospel, or was one of the sources of the synoptic tradition as a whole; that is, he may have written what is commonly known as the “Ur-Marcus” (see above, Bk. II. chap. 15, note 4). As to that, we cannot decide with absolute certainty, but we may say that Papias certainly understood the tradition which he gives to refer to our Gospel of Mark. The exact significance of the word ermhneuthj as used in this sentence has been much disputed. It seems best to give it its usual significance,-the significance which we attach to the English word “interpreter.” See Weiffenbach, ibid. p. 37 sq. It may be, supposing the report to be correct, that Peter found it advantageous to have some one more familiar than himself with the language of the people among whom he labored to assist him in his preaching. What language it was for which he needed an interpreter we cannot say. We might think naturally of Latin, but it is not impossible that Greek or that both languages were meant; for Peter, although of course possessed of some acquaintance with Greek, might not have been familiar enough with it to preach in it with perfect ease. The words “though not indeed in order” (ou mentoi tacei) have also caused considerable controversy. But they seem to refer chiefly to a lack of chronological arrangement, perhaps to a lack of logical arrangement also. The implication is that Mark wrote down without regard to order of any kind the words and deeds of Christ which he remembered. Lightfoot and most other critics have supposed that this accusation of a “lack of order” implies the existence of another written Gospel, exhibiting a different order, with which Papias compares it (e.g. with the Gospel of Matthew, as Weiss, Bleck, Holtzmann, and others think; or with John, as Light-foot, Zahn, Renan, and others suppose). This is a natural supposition, but it is quite possible that Papias in speaking of this lack of order is not thinking at all of another written Gospel, but merely of the order of events which he had received from tradition as the true one.

²Telesphorus was a martyr, according to Irenaeus, III. 3. 3 (compare below, chap. 10, and Bk. V. chap. 6), and the tradition is too old to be doubted. Eusebius here agrees with Jerome’s version of the Chron. in putting the date of Telesphorus’ accession in the year 128 a.d., but the Armenian version puts it in 124; and Lipsius, with whom Overbeck agrees, puts it between 124 and 126. Since he held office eleven years (according to Eusebius, chap. 10, below, and other ancient catalogues), he must have died, according to Lipsius and Overbeck, between 135 and 137 a.d. (the latter being probably the correct date), and not in the first year of Antoninus Pius (138 a.d.), as Eusebius states in chap. 10, below. Tradition says that he fought against Marcion and Valentinus (which is quite possible), and that he was very strict in regard to fasts, sharpening them and increasing their number, which may or may not be true.

³We know nothing more about Eumenes. He is said in chap. 11 to have held office thirteen years, and this brings the date of his death into agreement with the date given by the Armenian version of the Chron., which differs by two years from the date given by Jerome.

⁵The rebellions of the Jews which had broken out in Cyrene and elsewhere during the reign of Trajan only increased the cruelty of the Romans toward them, and in Palestine, as well as elsewhere in the East, their position was growing constantly worse. Already during the reign of Trajan Palestine itself was the scene of many minor disturbances and of much bitter persecution. Hadrian regarded them as a troublesome people, and showed in the beginning of his reign that he was not very favorably disposed toward them Indeed, it seems that he even went so far as to determine to build upon the site of Jerusalem a purely heathen city. It was at about this time, when all the Jews were longing for the Messiah, that a man appeared (his original name we do not know, but his coins make it probable that it was Simon), claiming to be the Messiah, and promising to free the Jews from the Roman yoke. He took the name Bar-Cochba, “Son of a star,” and was enthusiastically supported by Rabbi Akiba and other leading men among the Jews, who believed him to be the promised Messiah. He soon gathered a large force, and war finally broke out between him and Rufus, the governor of Judea, about the year 132. Rufus was not strong enough to put down the rebellion, and Julius Severus, Hadrian’s greatest general, was therefore summoned from Britain with a strong force. Bar-Cochba and his followers shut themselves up in Bethar, a strong fortification, and after a long siege the place was taken in 135 a.d., in the fourth year of the war, and Bar-Cochba was put to death. The Romans took severe revenge upon the Jews. Hadrian built upon the site of Jerusalem a new city, which he named Aelia Capitolina, and upon the site of the temple a new temple to the Capitoline Jupiter, and passed a law that no Jew should henceforth enter the place. Under Bar-Cochba the Christians, who refused to join him in his rebellion, were very cruelly treated (cf. Justin Martyr, Apol. I. 31, quoted in chap. 8, below). Upon this last war of the Jews, see Dion Cassius, LXIX. 12-14, and compare Jost’s Gesch. der Israeliten, III. p. 227 sq., and Münter’s Füdischer Krieg.

, Bar-Cochba, which signifies “Son of a star” (cf. Num. xxiv. 17). After his defeat the Jews gave him the name )bywwb rb

⁸Biqqhra, Rufinus Bethara. The exact situation of this place cannot be determined, although various localities have been suggested by travelers (see Robinson’s Bibl. Researches, III. p. 267 sqq.). We may conclude at any rate that it was, as Eusebius says, astrongly fortified place, and that it was situated somewhere in Judea.

⁹Whether the whole of the previous account, or only the close of it, was taken by Eusebius from Aristo of Pella, we do not know. Of Aristo of Pella himself we know very little. Eusebius is the first writer to mention him, and he and Maximus Confessor (in his notes on the work De mystica Theol. cap. I. p. 17, ed. Corderii) are the only ones to give us any information about him (for the notices in Moses Chorenensis and in the Chron. Paschale-the only other places in which Aristo is mentioned-are entirely unreliable). Maximus informs us that Aristo was the author of a Dialogue of Papiscus and Jason, a work mentioned by many of the Fathers, but connected by none of them with Aristo. The dialogue, according to Maximus, was known to Clement of Alexandria and therefore must have been written as early as, or very soon after, the middle of the second century; and the fact that it recorded a dialogue between a Hebrew Christian and an Alexandrian Jew (as we learn from the epistle of Celsus, De Judaica Incredulitate, printed with the works of Cyprian, in Hartel’s edition, III. p. 119-132) would lead us to expect an early date for the work. There can be found no good reason for doubting the accuracy of Maximus’ statement; and if it be accepted, we must conclude that the writer whom Eusebius mentions here was the author of the dialogue referred to. If this be so, it is quite possible that it was from this dialogue that Eusebius drew the account which he here ascribes to Aristo; for such an account might well find a place in a dialogue between two Hebrews. It is possible, of course, that Aristo wrote some othe work in which he discussed this subject; but if it had been an historical work, we should expect Eusebius, according to his custom, to give its title. Harnack is quite correct in assuming that Eusebius’ silence in regard to the work itself is significant. Doubtless the work did not please him, and hence he neither mentions it, nor gives an account of its author. This is just what we should expect Eusebius’ attitude to be toward such a Jewish Christian work (and at the same time, such a ‘simple’ work, as Origen calls it in Contra Cels. IV. 52) as we know the dialogue to have been. We are, of course, left largely to conjecture in this matter; but the above conclusions seem at least probable. Compare Harnack’s Ueberlieferung der griech. Apol., p. 115 sq.; and for a discussion of the nature of the dialogue (which is no longer extant), see his Altercatio Simonis Judaei et Theophili Christiani (Texte und Untersuchungen, I. 3), p. 115 sq. (Harnack looks upon this Latin altercatio as, in part at least, a free reproduction of the lost dialogue). See, also, the writer’s Dialogue between a Christian and a Jew (‘Antibolh Papiskou kai filwnoj ‘Ioudaiwn proj monacon tina), p. 33.

The town of Pella lay east of the Jordan, in Perea. See Bk. III. chap. 5, note 10, above.

¹⁰Of this Marcus we know nothing more. Upon the Gentile bishops of Jerusalem, see Bk. V. chap. 12.

¹²This statement is of course an exaggeration. See above, Bk. II. chap. 3, note 1.

¹³These two paragraphs furnish an excellent illustration of Eusebius’ dualistic and transcendental conception of history. In his opinion, heresy was not a natural growth from within, but an external evil brought upon the Church by the devil, when he could no longer persecute. According to this conception the Church conquers this external enemy, heresy, and then goes on as before, unaffected by it. In agreement with this is his conception of heretics themselves, whom he, in common with most other Christians of that age, considered without exception wicked and abandoned characters.

¹⁴Eusebius’ belief that persecution had ceased at the time of Hadrian is an illusion (see below, chap. 8, note 14) which falls in with his general conceptions upon this subject-conceptions which ruled among Christian writers until the end of the fourth century.

¹⁶Saturninus is called Saturnilus by Hippolytus, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, and his followers Saturnilians by Hegesippus, quoted in chap. 22, below. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. I. 24) and Hippolytus (VII. 16) give accounts of the man and his doctrine which are evidently taken from the same source, probably the lost Syntagma of Justin Martyr. Neither of them seems to have had any independent information, nor do any other writers know more about him than was contained in that original source. Irenaeus was possibly Eusebius’ sole authority, although Irenaeus assigns Saturninus only to Syria, while Eusebius makes him a native of Antioch. Hippolytus says that he “spent his time in Antioch of Syria,” which may have been the statement of the original, or may have been a mere deduction from a more general statement such as Irenaeus gives. In the same way Eusebius may have needed no authority for his still more exact statement.

¹⁷Basilides was one of the greatest and most famous of the Gnostics. Irenaeus (I. 24) and the early Compendium of Hippolytus (now lost, but used together with Irenaeus’ work by Epiphanius in his treatise against heresies) described a form of Basilidianism which was not the original, but a later corruption of the system. On the other hand, Clement of Alexandria surely, and Hippolytus, in the fuller account in his Philosoph. (VII. 2 sq.), probably drew their knowledge of the system directly from Basilides’ own work, the Exegetica, and hence represent the form of doctrine taught by Basilides himself,-a form differing greatly from the later corruptions of it which Irenaeus discusses. This system was very profound, and bore in many respects a lofty character. Basilides had apparently few followers (his son Isidore is the only prominent one known to us); and though his system created a great impression at the start,-so much so that his name always remained one of the most famous of Gnostic names,-it had little vitality, and soon died out or was corrupted beyond recognition. He was mentioned of course in all the general works against heresies written by the Fathers, but no one seems to have composed an especial refutation of his system except Agrippa Castor, to whom Eusebius refers. Irenaeus informs us that he taught at Alexandria, Hippolytus (VII. 15) mentions simply Egypt, while Epiphanius (XXI. 1) names various Egyptian cities in which he labored, but it is evident that he is only enumerating places in which there were Basilidians in his time. It is not certain whether he is to be identified with the Basilides who is mentioned in the Acts of Archelaus as preaching in Persia. For an excellent account of Basilides and his system, see the article by Hort in the Dict. of Christ. Biog.; and in addition to the works of Neander, Baur, and Lipsius on Gnosticism in general, see especially Uhlhorn’s Das Basilidianische System, Göttingen, 1855.

²⁰The only one of these-"that furnished posterity with means of defense against heresies"-whom Eusebius mentions is Agrippa Castor, and it is evident that he knew of no others. Moreover, it is more than doubtful whether Agrippa Castor belonged to that time. We do not know when he wrote, but it is hardly possible that the Church had at that period any one capable of answering such a work as the Commentary of Basilides, or any one who would wish to if he could. The activity of the Church was at this early period devoted chiefly if not wholly to the production of apologies for the defense of the Church against the attacks of enemies from the outside, and to the composition of apocalypses. Eusebius in the next chapter mentions Hegesippus as another of these “writers of the time.” But the passage which he quotes to prove that Hegesippus wrote then only proves that the events mentioned took place during his lifetime, and not necessarily within forty or fifty years of the time at which he was writing. The fact is, that Hegesippus really wrote about 175 a.d. (later therefore than Justin Martyr), and in chap. 21 of this book Eusebius restores him to his proper chronological place. The general statement made here by Eusebius in regard to the writers against heresy during the reign of Hadrian rest upon his preconceived idea of what must have been the case. If the devil raised up enemies against the truth, the Church must certainly have had at the same time defenders to meet them. It is a simple example of well-meaning subjective reconstruction. He had the work of Agrippa Castor before him, and undoubtedly believed that he lived at the time stated (which indeed we cannot absolutely deny), and believed, moreover, that other similar writers, whose names he did not know, lived at the same time.

²¹Of Agrippa Castor we know only what Eusebius tells us here. Jerome (de vir. ill. chap. 21) adds nothing new, and Theodoret’s statement (Fab. I. 4), that Agrippa wrote against Basilides’ son, Isidore, as well as against Basilides himself, is simply an expansion of Eusebius’ account, and does not imply the existence of another work. Agrippa’s production, of which we do not know even thetitle, has entirely disappeared.

²²eij euaggelion biblia. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. IV. 12) quotes from the twenty-third book of the Exegetica of Basilides. Origen (Hom. in Luc. I.) says that Basilides “had even the audacity to write a Gospel according to Basilides,” and this remark is repeated by Ambrose (Exp. in Luc. I.), and seems to be Jerome’s authority for the enumeration of a Gospel of Basilides among the Apocryphal Gospels in his Comment in Matt., praef. We know nothing more about this Gospel, and it is quite possible that Origen mistook the Exegetica for a Gospel. We do not know upon what Gospels Basilides wrote his Commentary (or Exegetica), but it is hardly probable that he would have expounded his own Gospel even if such a work existed. The passage from the Exegetica which Clement quotes looks to me like a part of an exposition of John ix. (although Lipsius, in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. II. 715, suggests Luke xxi. 12). Meanwhile, in the Acta Archelai, chap. 55 (see Gallandii Bibl. PP. III. 608), is a quotation from “the thirteenth book of the treatises (tractatuum) of Basilides,” which is an exposition of the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Luke xvi.). If this is the same work, it would seem that the Exegetica must have included at least Luke and John, possibly Matthew also, for we know that the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John were all used by the Basiltitans. The respective positions in the work of the expositions of the passages from Luke and John (the former in the thirteenth, the latter in the twenty-third, book) would seem, however, to exclude Matthew, if the books were at all of equal length. If Lipsius were correct in regarding the latter passage as an exposition of Luke xxi. 12, there would be no evidence that the Commentary covered more than a single Gospel.

²³According to Epiphanius, some of the Ophites appealed to a certain prophet called Barcabbas. What his connection was with the one mentioned here we do not know. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. VI. 6) speaks of the Expositions af the Prophet Parchor by Isidore, the son of Basilides. This may be another of Basilides’ prophets, but is more probably identical with the oft-mentioned Barcoph. In the second book of these Expositions, as quoted by Clement, occurs a reference to the prophecy of Cham or Ham. Rienstra (De Euseb. Hist. Eccles. p. 29) thinks that Agrippa Castor was mistaken in saying that Basilides mentioned these prophets; but there seems to be no good reason to deny the accuracy of the report, even though we know nothing more about the prophets mentioned. Hort (Dict. of Christ. Biog., article Barcabbas) thinks it likely that the prophecies current among the various Gnostic bodies belonged to the apocryphal Zoroastrian literature.

²⁴This was not a doctrine of Basilides himself, but of his followers (compare the accounts of Irenaeus and Hippolytus). If Agrippa Castor represented Basilides’ position thus, as Eusebius says he did (though Eusebius may be only following Irenaeus), it is an evidence that he did not live at the early date to which Eusebius assigns him, and this goes to confirm the view stated above, in note 10. Basilides himself taught at least a moderate asceticism, while his followers went off into crude dualism and moral license (see the excellent account of Schaff, Ch. Hist. II. 466 sq.).

²⁵Exactly what is meant by this “five years of silence” is uncertain. Whether it denoted unquestioning and silent obedience of all commands, as it meant in the case of the Pythagoreans (if, indeed, the traditions in regard to the latter have any basis in fact), or strict secrecy as to the doctrines taught, cannot be decided. The report in regard to the Basilidians, in so far as it has any truth, probably arose on the ground of some such prohibition, which may have been made by some follower of Basilides, if not by the latter himself. A bond of secrecy wotdd lend an air of mystery to the school, which would accord well with the character of its later teachings. But we cannot make Basilides responsible for such proceedings. Agrippa Castor, as reproduced here by Eusebius, is our sole authority for the enjoinment of silence by Basilides.

²⁷The date of the rise of Gnosticism cannot be fixed. Indeed, all the requisite conditions existed from the beginning. It was the “acute Verweltlichung” (as Harnack calls it) of Christianity, the development of it in connection with the various ethnic philosophies, and it began as soon as Christianity came in contact with the Greek mind. At first it was not heretical, simply because there were no standards by which to try it. There was only the preaching of the Christians; the canon was not yet formed; episcopacy was not yet established; both arose as safeguards against heresy. It was in the time of Hadrian, perhaps, that these speculations began to be regarded as heresics, because they contradicted certain fundamental truths to which the Christians felt that they must cling, such as the unity of God, his graciousness, his goodness, etc.; and therefore the Christians dated Gnosticism from that time. Gnosticism was ostensibly conquered, but victory was achieved only as the Church itself became in a certain sense Gnostic. It followed the course of Gnosticism a century later; that is, it wrote commentaries, systems of doctrine, &c., philosophizing about religious things (cf. Harnack’s Dogmengeschichte, I. p. 162 sq.). It must be remembered in reading the Fathers’ accounts of Gnosticism that they took minor and ummportant details and magnified them, and treated them as the essentials of the system or systems. In this way far greater variety appears to have existed in Gnosticism than was the case. The essential principles were largely the same throughout; the differences were chiefly in regard to details. It is this conduct on the part of the Fathers that gives us such a distorted and often ridiculous view of Gnosticism.

The Carpocratians are the first of whom Irenaeus expressly says that they called themselves Gnostics (adv. Haer. I. 25, 6), while Hippolytus first speaks of the name as adopted by the Naasseni (V. 1). The Carpocratians are mentioned by Hegesippus (quoted below in chap. 22). The system was more exclusively Greek in its character than any other of the Gnostic systems. The immorality of the sect was proverbial; Tertullian (de Anima, c. 35) calls Carpocrates a magician and a fornicator. He taught the superiority of man over the powers of the world, the moral indifference of things in themselves, and hence, whether he himself was immoral or not, his followers carried out his principles to the extreme, and believed that the true Gnostic might and even must have experience of everything, and therefore’ should practice all sorts of immoralities.

Eusebius is probably right in assigning Carpocrates to this period. The relation of his system to those of Saturnthus and Basilides seems to imply that he followed them, but at no great interval. Other sources for a knowledge of Carpocrates and his sect are Irenaeus (I. 25 and II. 31-33), Clement of Alexandria (Strom. III. 2), Hippolytus (Phil. VII. 20), Tertullian (de Anima, 23, 35), Pseudo-Tertullian (adv. omnes Haer. 3), Epiphanius (Haer. 27), and Philaster (c. 35). Of these only Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and the earlier treatise of Hippolytus (which lies at the base of Pseudo-Tertullian and Philaster) are independent; and probably, back of Irenaeus, lies Justin Martyr’s lost Syntagma; though it is very likely that Irenaeus knew the sect personally, and made additions of his own. Compare Harnack’s Quellenkritik des Gnosticismus, p. 41 sq.

²⁹Where Eusebius secured the information that the Carpocratians made the magic rites of Simon public, instead of keeping them secret, as Basilides had done, I cannot tell. None of our existing sources mentions this fact, and whether Eusebius took it from some lost source, or whether it is simply a deduction of his own, I am not certain. In other respects his account agrees closely with that of Irenaeus. It is possible that he had seen the lost work of Hippolytus (see below, VI. 22, note 9), and from that had picked up this item which he states as a fact. But the omission of it in Philaster, Pseudo-Tertullian, and Epiphanius are against this supposition. Justin’s Syntagma Eusebius probably never saw (see below, chap. 11, note 31).

³⁰The chief accusations urged against the early Christians by their antagonists were atheism, cannibalism, and incest. These charges were made very early. Justin Martyr (Apol. 1. 26) mentions them, and Pliny in his epistle to Trajan speaks of the innocent meals of the Christians, implying that they had been accused of immorality in connection with them. (Compare, also, Tertullian’s Apol. 7, 8, and Ad Nationes, 7.) In fact, suspicions arose among the heathen as soon as their love feasts became secret. The persecution in Lyons is to be explained only by the belief of the officer, that these and similar accusations were true. The Christians corn monly denied all such charges in toto, and supported their denial by urging the absurdity of such conduct; but sometimes, as in the present case, they endeavored to exonerate themselves by attributing the crimes with which they were charged to heretics. This course, however, helped them little with the heathen, as the latter did not distinguish between the various parties of Christians, but treated them all as one class. The statement of Eusebius in the present case is noteworthy. He thinks that the crimes were really committed by heretics, and occasioned the accusations of the heathen, and he thus admits that the charges were founded upon fact. In this case he acts toward the heretics in the same way that the heathen acted toward the Christians as a whole. This method of exonerating themselves appears as early as Justin Martyr (compare his Apol. I. 26). Irenaeus also (I. 25, 3), whom Eusebius substantially follows in this passage, and Philaster (c. 57), pursue the same course.

³¹Eusebius is correct in his statement that such accusations were no longer made in his day. The Church had, in fact, lived them down completely. It is noticeable that in the elaborate work of Celsus against the Christians, no such charges are found. From Origen (Contra Cels. VI. 27), however, we learn that there were still in his time some who believed these reports about the Christians, though they were no longer made the basis of serious attacks. Whether Eusebius’ synchronization of the cessation of these slanderous stories with the cessation of the heresies of which he has been talking, is correct, is not so Certain, as we know neither exactly when these heresies ran out, nor precisely the time at which the accusations ceased. At any rate, we cannot fully agree with Eusebius’ explanation of the matter. The two things were hardly connected as direct cause and effect, though it cannot be denied that the actual immoralities of some of these antinomian sects may have had some effect in confirming these tales, and hence that their extinction may have had some tendency to hasten the obliteration of the vile reports.

³³On the life and writings of Hegesippus, see below, chap. 22, note 1. Eusebius in this passage puts his literary activity too early (see above, chap. 7, note 10). Jerome follows Eusebius’ chronological arrangement in his de vir ill., giving an account of Hegesippus in chap. 22, between his accounts of Agrippa Castor and Justin Martyr.

³⁵Antinoüs, a native of Bithynia, was a beautiful page of the Emperor Hadrian, and the object of his extravagant affections. He was probably drowned in the Nile, in 130 a.d. After his death he was raised to the rank of the gods, and temples were built for his worship in many parts of the empire, especially in Egypt. In Athens too games were instituted in his honor, and games were also celebrated every fifth year at Mantinea, in Arcadia, according to Vale. sius, who cites Pausanias as his authority.

³⁶Hadrian rebuilt the city of Bess in the Thebais, in whose neighborhood Antino_s was drowned, and called it Antinoüpolis.

³⁷On Justin Martyr, see chap. 16, below. We do not know the date of his conversion, but as it did not take place until mature years, it is highly probable that he was still a heathen during the greater part of Hadrian’s reign. There is no reason, however, to suppose that Eusebius is speaking here with more than approximate accuracy. He may not have known any better than we the exact time of Justin’s conversion.

⁴⁰xristianouj monouj. “This ‘alone’ is, as Münter remarks, not to be understood as implying that Barcocheba did not treat the Greeks and Romans also with cruelty, but that he persecuted the Christians especially, from religious hate, if he could not compel them to apostatize. Moreover, he handled the Christians so roughly because of their hesitation to take part in the rebellion” (Closs).

⁴²Justin, Apol. II. 12. Eusebius here quotes from what is now known as the Second Apology of Justin, but identifies it with the first, from which he has quoted just above. This implies that the two as he knew them formed but one work, and this is confirmed by his quotations in chaps. 16 and 47, below. For a discussion of this matter, see chap. 18, note 3.

⁴³The best mss. of Eusebius write the name Serennioj Granianoj, but one ms., supported by Syncellus, writes the first word “Serenio”. Rufinus writes “Serenius"; Jerome, in his version of Eusebius' Chronicle, followed by Orosius (VII. 13), writes “Serenius Granius,” and this, according to Kortholdt (quoted by Heinichen), is shown by an inscription to have been the correct form (see Heinichen’s edition, in loco). We know no more of this man, except that he was Minucius Fundanus’ predecessor as proconsul of Asia, as we learn from the opening sentence of the rescript quoted in the next chapter.

⁴⁴grammata. The plural is often used like the Latin literae to denote a single epistle and we learn from the opening sentence of the rescript itself (if the Greek of Eusebius is to be relied on) that Hadrian replies, not to a number of letters, but to a single one,-an epistolh, as Eusebius calls it.

⁴⁶This Minucius Fundanus is the same person that is addressed by Pliny, Ep. I. 9 (see Mommsen’s note in Keil’s ed. of Pliny’s epistles, p. 419). He is mentioned also by Melito (Eusebius, IV. 26) as proconsul of Asia, and it is there said that Hadrian wrote to him concerning the Christians. The authenticity of this rescript is a disputed point. Keim (Theol. Jahrbücher, 1856, p. 387 sqq.) was the first to dispute its genuineness. He has been followed by many scholars, especially Overbeck, who gives a very keen discussion of the various edicts of the early emperors relating to the Christians in his Studien zur Gesch. der alten Kirche, I. p. 93 sqq. The genuineness of the edict, however, has been defended against Keim’s attack by Wieseler, Renan, Lightfoot, and others. The whole question hinges upon the interpretation of the rescript. According to Gieseler, Neander, and some others, it is aimed only against tumultuous proceedings, and, far from departing from the principle laid down by Trajan, is an attempt to return to that principle and to substitute orderly judicial processes for popular attacks. If this be the sense of the edict, there is no reason to doubt its genuineness, but the next to the last sentence certainly cannot be interpreted in that way: “if any one therefore brings an accusation, and shows that they have done something contrary to the laws (ti para touj nomouj) determine thus according to the heinousness of the crime” (kata thn dunamin tou amarthmatoj). These last words are very significant. They certainly imply various crimes of which the prisoners are supposed to be accused. According to the heinousness of these crimes the punishment is to be regulated. In other words, the trial of the Christians was to be for the purpose of ascertaining whether they were guilty of moral or political crimes, not whether they merely professed Christianity; that is, the profession of Christianity, according to this rescript, is not treated as a crime in and of itself. If the edict then be genuine, Hadrian reversed completely Trajan’s principle of procedure which was to punish the profession of Christianity in andof itself as a crime. But in the time of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius the rescript of Trajan is seen still to be in full force. For this and other reasons presented by Keim and Overbeck, I am constrained to class this edict with those of Antoninus Plus and Marcus Aurelius as a forgery. It can hardly have been composed while Hadrian was still alive, but must have been forged before Justin wrote his Apology, for he gives it as a genuine edict, i.e. it must belong to the early part of the reign of Antoninus Pius.

The illusion under which the early Christian writers labored in regard to the relations of the emperors to Christianity is very remarkable. Both Melito and Tertullian state that no emperor had persecuted the Christians except Nero and Domitian. Christian writers throughout the second century talk in fact as if the mode of treatment which they were receiving was something new and strange, and in opposition to the better treatment which previous emperors had accorded the Christians. In doing this, they ignore entirely the actual edicts of the emperors, all of which are now lost and notice only forged edicts which are favorable to the Christians; when and by, whom they were forged we do not know. Thus Tertullian, in addressing Septimius Severus, speaks of the favors which his predecessors had granted the Christians and contrasts their conduct with his; Melito addresses Marcus Aurelius in the same way, and so Justin addresses Antoninus Plus. This method probably arose from a misunderstandings of the original edict of Trajan (cf. Bk. III. chap. 33, note 6), which they all considered favorable, and therefore presupposed a friendly attitude on the part of the emperors toward the Christians, which, not finding in their own age, they naturally transferred to a previous age. This led gradually to the idea-which Lactantius first gives precise expression to-that only the bad emperors persecuted Christianity, while the good ones were favorable to it. But after the empire became Christian, the belief became common that all the heathen emperors had been persecutors, the good as well as the bad;-all the Christian emperors were placed upon one level, and all the heathen on another, the latter being looked upon, like Nero and Domitian, as wicked tyrants. Compare Overbeck, l.c.

⁴⁷Our two mss. of Justin have substituted the Greek translation of Eusebius for the Latin original given by the former. Rufinus, however, in his version of Eusebius' History, gives a Latin translation which is very likely the original one. Compare Kimmel’s De Rufino, p. 175 sq., and Lightfoot’s Ignatius, I. p. 463 sq., and see Otto’s Corpus Apol. I. p. 190 sq., where the edict is given, both in the Greek of our mss. of Justin and in the Latin of Rufinus. Keim (Aus dean Urchristenthum, p. 184 sq.) contends that the Latin of Rufinus is not the original, but a translation of Eusebius’ Greek. His arguments, however, do not possess any real weight, and the majority of scholars accept Kimmel’s view.

⁴⁹We cannot judge as to the faithfulness of the Greek translation which follows, because we are not absolutely sure whether the Latin of Rufinus is its original, or itself a translation of it. Eusebius and Rufinus, however, agree very well, and if the Latin of Rufinus is the original of Eusebius’ translation, the latter has succeeded much better than the Greek translator of the Apology of Tertullian referred to in Bk. II. chap. 2, above. We should expect, however, that much greater pains would be taken with the translation of a brief official document of this kind than with such a work as Tertullian’s Apology, and Eusebius’ translation of the rescript does not by any means prove that he was a fluent Latin scholar. As remarked above (Bk. II. chap. 5, note 9), he probably had comparatively little acquaintance with the Latin, but enough to enable him to translate brief passages for himself in cases of necessity.

⁵²This is the only really suspicious sentence in the edict. That Hadrian should desire to protect his Christian subjects as well as others from tumultuous and illegal proceedings, and from unfounded accusations, would be of course qutte natural, and quite in accord with the spirit shown by Trajan in his rescript. But in this one sentence he implies that the Christians are to be condemned only for actual crimes, and that the mere profession of Christianity is not in itself a punishable offense. Much, therefore, as we might otherwise be tempted to accept the edict as genuine,-natural as the style is and the position taken in the other portions of it,-this one sentence, considered in the light of all that we know of the attitude of Hadrian’s predecessors and successors toward the Christians, and of all that we can gather of his own views, must, as I believe, condemn it as a forgery.

⁵³Compare this sentence with the closing words of the forged edict of Antoninus Pius quoted by Eusebius in chap. 13. Not only are the Christians to be released, but their accusers are to be punished. Still there is a difference between the two commands in that here only an accusation made with the purpose of slander is to be punished, while there the accuser is to he unconditionally held as guilty, if actual crimes are not proved against the accused Christian. The latter command would be subversive of all justice, and brands itself as a counterfeit on its very face; but in the present case the injunction to enforce the law forbidding slander against those who should slanderously accuse the Christians is not inconsistent with the principles of Trajan and Hadrian, and hence not of itself alone an evidence of ungenuineness.

⁵⁶On Telesphorns, see above, chap. 5, note 13. The date given here by Eusebius (138-139 a.d.) is probably (as remarked there) at least a year too late.

⁵⁷We know very little about Hyginus. His dates can be fixed with tolerable certainty as 137-141, the duration of his episcopate being four years, as Eusebius states in the next chapter. See Lipsius' Chron. d. röm. Bischöfe, p. 169 and 263. The Roman martyrologies make him a martyr, but this means nothing, as the early bishops of Rome almost without exception are called martyrs by these documents. The forged decretals ascribe to him the introduction of a number of ecclesiastical rites.

⁵⁸In his Adv. Haer. III. 3. 3. The testimony of Irenaeus rests upon Roman tradition at this point, and is undoubtedly reliable. Telesphorus is the first Roman bishop whom we know to have suffered martyrdom, although the Roman Catholic Church celebrates as martyrs all the so-called popes down to the fourth century.

⁶¹Valentinus is the best known of the Gnostics. According to Epiphanius (Haer. XXXI. 2) he was born on the coast of Egypt, and studied Greek literature and science at Alexandria. The same writer, on the authority of the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus, informs us that he taught in Cyprus, and this must have been before he went to Rome. The direct statement of Irenaeus as to the date of his activity there is confirmed by Tertullian, and perhaps by Clement of Alexandria, and is not to be doubted. Since Hyginus held office in all probability from 137-141, and Anicetus from 154 or 155 to 166 or 167, Valentinus must have been in Rome at least thirteen years. His chronological position between Basilides and Marcion (as given by Clement of Alexandria, Strom. VII. 17) makes it probable that he came to Rome early in Antoninus’ reign and remained there during all or the most of that reign, but not longer. Valentinus’ followers divided into two schools, an Oriental and an Italian, and constituted by far the most numerons and influential Gnostic sect. His system is the most profound and artistic of the Gnostic systems, and reveals great depth and power of mind. For an excellent account of Valentinus and Valentinianism, see Lipsius’ article in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. Vol. IV. Valentinus occupies a prominent place in all works on Gnosticism.

⁶²Cerdon is best known as the teacher of Marcion. Epiphanius (Haer. XLI.) and Philaster (Haer. XLIV.) call him a native of Syria. Epiphanius speaks of a sect of Cerdonians, but there seems never to have been such a sect, and his disciples probably early became followers of Marcion, who joined Cerdon soon after reaching Rome. It is not possible to distinguish his teachings from those of his pupil, Marcion. Hippolytus (X. 15) treats Cordon and Marcion together, making no attempt to distinguish their doctrines. Irenaeus, in the passage quoted, and the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus (represented by Pseudo-Tertullian’s Adv. Haer. and by Epiphanius) distinguish the two, treating Cerdon separately but very briefly. The doctrines of Cerdon, however, given by them, are identical with or at least very similar to the known views of Marcion. If they were really Cerdon’s positions before Marcion came to him, then his influence over Marcion was most decided.

⁶⁴This proconsul was Statius Quadratus, as we are told in the latter part of this epistle, in a passage which Eusebius does not quote. Upon his dates, see the discussions of the date of Polycarp’s martyrdom mentioned in note 2, above.

⁶⁵Compare Justin Martyr’s Apol. I. 6; Tertullian’s Apol. 10, &c.; and see chap. 7, note 20, above.

⁶⁶Of Quintus we know only what is told us in this epistle. It is significant that he was a Phrygian, for the Phrygians were proverbially excitable and fanatical, and it was among them that Montanism took its rise. The conduct of Polycarp, who avoided death as long as he could without dishonor, was in great contrast to this; and it is noticeable that the Smyrnaeans condemn Quintus’ hasty and ill-considered action, and that Eusebius echoes their judgment (see above, p. 8).

⁶⁷Sabbaton megalou. “The great Sabbath” in the Christian Church, at least from the time of Chrysostom on, was the Saturday between Good-Friday and Easter. But so far as we know, there are no examples of that use of the phrase earlier than Chrysostom’s time. Lightfoot points out that, in the present instance, it is not ”The great Sabbath” (to mega Sabbaton), but only ”A great Sabbath"; and therefore, in the present instance, any great Sabbath might be meant,-that is, any Sabbath which coincided with a festival or other marked day in the Jewish calendar. Lightfoot gives strong reasons for assuming that the traditional day of Polycarp’s death (Feb. 23) is correct, and that the Sabbath referred to here was a great Sabbath because it coincided with the Feast of Purim (see Lightfoot, ibid. I. p. 660 sqq. and 690 sqq.).

⁶⁸Of Herod and Nicetes we know only what is told us in this epistle. The latter was not an uncommon name in Smyrna, as we learn from inscriptions (see Lightfoot, ibid. II. p. 958).

⁷⁰Compare Joshua i. 6, Joshua i. 7, Joshua i. 9, and Deut. i. 7, Deut. i. 23.

⁷¹thn Kaisaroj tuxhn. This oath was invented under Julius Caesar, and continued under his successors. The oath was repudiated by the Christians, who regarded the “genius” of the emperor as a false God, and therefore the taking of the oath a species of idolatry. It was consequently employed very commonly by the magistrates as a test in times of persecution (cf. Tertullian, Apol. 32; Origen, Contra Cels. VIII. 65, and many other passages).

⁷²See above, chap. 14, note 5. Whether the eighty-six years are to be reckoned from Polycarp’s birth, or from the time of his conversion or baptism, we cannot tell. At the same time, inasmuch as he speaks of serving Christ, for eighty-six years, not God, I am inclined to think that he is reckoning from the time of his conversion or baptism, which may well be if we suppose him to have been baptized in early boyhood.

⁷⁴timhn ...thn mh blaptousan hmaj. Compare Pseudo-Ignatius, ad Antioch. 11, and Mart. Ignat. Rom. 6 (in both of which are found the words en oij akindunoj h uupotagh).

⁷⁵The proconsul made quite a concession here. He would have been glad to have Polycarp quiet the multitude if he could. Polycarp was not reckless and foolish in refusing to make the attempt, for he knew it would fail, and he preferred to retain his dignity and not compromise himself by appearing to ask for mercy.

⁷⁶The Jews appear very frequently as leading spirits in the persecution of Christians. The persecution under Nero was doubtless due to their instigation (see Bk. II. chap. 25, note 4). Compare also Tertullian, Scorp. 10, and Eusebius, H. E. V. 16. That the Jews were numerous in Smyrna has been shown by Lightfoot, ibid. p. 966.

⁷⁷“The Asiarch was the head of the Commune Asiae, the confederation of the principal cities of the Roman province of Asia. As such, he was the ‘chief priest0’ of Asia, and president of the games” (Lightfoot, ibid. p. 967; on p. 987 ff. of the same volume, Lightfoot discusses the Asiarchate at considerable length). The Asiarch Philip mentioned here was a Trallian, as we learn from a statement toward the close of the epistle, which Eusebius does not quote; Lightfoot identifies him with a person named in various Trallian Inscriptions.

⁷⁹paidoj not uiou. paij commonly conveys the meaning of servant rather than son, although in this passage it is evidently used in the latter sense. Its use in connection with Christ Was in later times dropped as Arianistic in its tendency.

⁸¹It is not necessary to dispute the truthfulness of the report in this and the next sentences on the ground that the events recorded are miraculous in their nature, and therefore cannot have happened. Natural causes may easily have produced some such phenomena as the writers describe, and which they of course regarded as miraculous. Lightfoot refers to a number of similar cases, Vol. I. p. 598 ff. Compare also Harnack in the Zeitschrift für Kirchengesch. II. p. 291 ff.

⁸²Komfektora. It was the common business of the Confectores to dispatch such wild beasts as had not been killed outright during the combat in the arena. See Lightfoot, p. 974.

⁸³Before the words “a quantity of blood” are found in all the Greek mss. of the epistle the words peristera kai, “a dove and.” It seems probable that these words did not belong to the original text, but that they were, as many critics believe, an unintentional corruption of some other phrase, or that they were, as Lightfoot thinks, a deliberate interpolation by a late editor (see Lightfoot, II. 974 ff. and I. 627 ff.). No argument, therefore, against the honesty of Eusebius can be drawn from his omission of the words.

⁸⁴See above, note 6. That the word kaqolikhj is used here in the later sense of “orthodox,” as opposed to heretical and schismatical bodies, can be questioned by no one. Lightfoot, however, reads at this point agiaj instead of kagolikhj in his edition of the epistle. It is true that he has some ms. support, but the mss. and versions of Eusebius are unanimous in favor of the latter word, and Lightfoot’s grounds for making the change seem to be quite insufficient. If any change is to be made, the word should be dropped out entirely, as suggested by the note already referred to.

⁸⁵All, or nearly all, the mss. of Eusebius read Dalkhj, and that reading is adopted by Stephanus, Valesius (in his text), Schwegler, Laemmer, Heinichen, and Crusè. On the other hand, the mss. of the epistle itself all support the form Alkhj (or Alkhj, Elkeij, as it appears respectively in two mss.), and Lightfoot accepts this unhesitatingly as the original form of the word, and it is adopted by many editors of Eusehius (Valesius, in his notes, Stroth, Zimmermann, Burton, and Closs). Dalce is an otherwise unknown name, while Alce, though rare, is a good Greek name, and is once connected with Smyrna in an inscription. Moreover, we learn from Ignatius, ad Smyr. 13, and ad Polyc. VIII., that Alce was a well-known Christian in Smyrna at the time Ignatius wrote his epistles. The use of the name at this point shows that its possessor was or had been a prominent character in the church of Smyrna, and the identification of the two seems to me beyond all reasonable doubt (see, also, Lightfoot, I. 353; II. 325 and 978). That Eusebius, however, wrote Alce is not so certain. In fact, in view of the external testimony, it might be regarded as quite as likely that he, by a mistake, wrote Dalce, as that some copyist afterwards committed the error. Still, the name Alce must have been to Eusebius, with his remarkable memory, familiar from Ignatius’ epistles, and hence his mistaking it for another word seems a little strange. But whether Eusebius himself wrote Dalce or Alce, believing the latter to be the correct form, the form which he should have written, I have ventured to adopt it in my translation.

⁸⁶This shows that the martyrs were highly venerated even at this early date, as was indeed most natural, and as is acknowledged by the writers themselves just below. But it does not show that the Christians already worshiped or venerated their relics as they did in later centuries. The heathen, in their own paganism, might easily conclude from the Christians’ tender care of and reverence for the martyrs’ relics that they also worshiped them.

⁸⁷This is, so far as I am aware, the earliest notice of the annual celebration of the day of a martyr’s death, a practice which early became so common in the Church. The next reference to the custom is in Tertullian’s de Corona, 3 (cf. also Scorp. 15). So natural a practice, however, and one which was soon afterward universal, need not surprise us at this early date (see Ducange, Natalis, and Bingham, Ant. XIII. 9. 5, XX. 7. 2).

⁸⁸The majority of the mss. read dwdeka tou en Emurnh marturhsantoj, which, however, is quite ungrammatical as it stands in the sentence, and cannot be accepted Heinichen reads dwdeka ton en k.t.l., changing the genitive of the majority of the mss. to an accusative, but like them, as also like Rufinus, making twelve martyrs besides Polycarp. But the mss. of the epistle itself read dwdekatoj Em. marturhsaj, thus making only eleven martyrs in addition to Polycarp, and it cannot be doubted that this idiomatic Greek construction is the original. In view of that fact, I am constrained to read with Valesius, Schwegler, and Zahn (in his note on this passage in his edition of the epistle), dwdekaton en Em. marturhsanta, translating literally, “suffered martyrdom with those from Philadelphia, the twelfth"; or, as I have rendered it freely in the text, “suffered martyrdom with the eleven from Philadelphia.” It is, of course, possible that Eusebius himself substituted the dwdeka for the dwdekatoj, but the variations and inconsistencies in the mss. at this point make it more probable that the change crept in later, and that Eusebius agreed with his original in making Polycarp the twelfth martyr, not the thirteenth. Of these eleven only Germanicus is mentioned in this epistle, and who the others were we do not know. They cannot have been persons of prominence, or Polycarp’s martyrdom would not so completely have overshadowed theirs.

⁸⁹grafh. These other accounts were not given in the epistle of the Smyrnaeans, but were doubtless appended to that epistle in the ms. which Eusebius used. The accounts referred to are not found in any of our mss. of the epistle, but there is published in Ruinart’s Acta Martyrum Sincera, p. 188 sq., a narrative in Latin of the martyrdom of a certain Pionius and of a certain Marcionist Metrodorus, as well as of others, which appears to be substantially the same as the document which Eusebius knew in the original Greek, and which he refers to here. The account bears all the marks of genuineness, and may be regarded as trustworthy, at least in the main points. But Eusebius has fallen into a serious chronological blunder in making these other martyrs contemporaries of Polycarp. We learn from a notice in the document given by Ruinart that Pionius, Metrodorus, and the others were put to death during the persecution of Decius, in 250 a.d., and this date is confirmed by external evidence. The document which Eusebius used may not have contained the distinct chronological notice which is now found in it, or Eusebius may have overlooked it, and finding the narrative given in his ms. in close connection with the account of Polycarp’s martyrdom, he may have jumped hastily to the conclusion that both accounts relate to the same period of time. Or, as Lightfoot suggests, in the heading of the document there may have stood the words h auth peoiodoj tou xoonou (a peculiar phrase, which Eusebius repeats) indicating (as the words might indicate) that the events took place at the same season of the year, while Eusebius interpreted them to mean the same period of trine. Upon these Acts, and upon Metrodorus and Pionius, see Lightfoot, I. p. 622 sqq. The Life of Polycarp, which purports to have been written by Pionius, is manifestly spurious and entirely untrustworthy, and belongs to the latter part of the fourth century. The true Pionius, therefore, who suffered under Decius, and the Pseudo-Pionius who wrote that Life are to be sharply distinguished (see Lightfoot, I. p. 626 sqq.).

⁹⁰This is an excellent summary of Pionius’ sufferings, as recorded in the extant Acts referred to in the previous note.

⁹¹This is the Collection of Ancient Martyrdoms, which is no longer extant, but which is referred to by Eusebius more than once in his History. For particulars in regard to it, see above, p. 30 sq.

⁹²A detailed account of the martyrdoms of Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice is extant in numerous mss., and has been published more than once. It has, however, long been recognized as spurious and entirely untrustworthy. But in 1881 Aubè published in the Revue Archavalogique (Dec., p. 348 sq.) a shorter form of the Acts of these martyrs, which he had discovered in a Greek ms. in the Paris Library. There is no reason to doubt that these Acts are genuine and, in the main, quite trustworthy. The longer Acts assign the death of these martyrs to the reign of Decius, and they have always been regarded as suffering during that persecution. Aubè, in publishing his newly discovered document, still accepted the old date; but Zahn, upon the basis of the document which he had also seen, remarked in his Tatian’s Diatessaron (p. 279) that Eusebius was correct in assigning these martyrdoms to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and Lightfoot (I. p. 625) stated his belief that they are to be assigned either to that reign or to the reign of Septimius Severus. In 1888 Harnack (Texte und Unters. III. 4) published a new edition of the Acts from the same ms. which Aubè had used, accompanying the text with valuable notes and with a careful discussion of the age of the document. He has proved beyond all doubt that these martyrs were put to death during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and that the shorter document which we have contains a genuine account related by an eye-witness. These are evidently the Acts which Eusebius had before him. In the spurious account Carpus is called a bishop, and Papylus a deacon. But in the shorter account they are simply Christians, and Papylus informs the judge that he is a citizen of Thyatira.

Eusebius apparently did not include the account of these martyrs in his collection of Ancient Martyrdoms, and Harnack concludes from that that he found in it something that did not please him, viz. the fanaticism of Agathonice, who rashly and needlessly rushes to martyrdom, and the approval of her conduct expressed by the author of the Acts. We are reminded of the conduct of the Phrygian Quintus mentioned in the epistle of the Smyrnaeans but in that epistle such conduct is condemned.

⁹³That is, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, 161-169 a.d. Inasmuch as Eusebius is certainly in error in ascribing the death of Polycarp, recorded in the previous chapter, to the reign of Marcus Aurelius (see note 2 on that chapter), the fact that he here connects Justin’s death with that reign furnishes no evidence that it really occurred then; but we have other good reasons for supposing that it did (see below, note 4).

⁹⁵Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, whom he mentioned at the close of chap. 14, and the events of whose reign he is now ostensibly recording. But in regard to this supposed second apology addressed to them, see chap. 18, note 3.

⁹⁶That Justin died a martyr’s death is the universal tradition of antiquity, which is crystallized in his name. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. I. 28. 1) is the first to mention it, but does so casually, as a fact well known. The only account of his martyrdom which we have is contained in the Acta Martyrii Justini Philosophi (Galland. I. 707 sq.), which, although belonging to a later age (probably the third century), yet bear every evidence of containing a comparatively truthful account of Justin’s death. According to these Acts, Justin, with six companions, was brought before Rusticus, prefect of ome, and by him condemned to death, upon his refusal to sacrifice to the gods. The date of his martyrdom is very difficult to determine. There are two lines of tradition, one of which puts his death under Antoninus Pius, the other trader Marcus Aurelius. The latter has the most in its favor; and if we are to accept the report of the Acta Justini (which can be doubted least of all at this point), his death took place under Rusticus, who, as we know, became prefect of Rome in 163. Upon the date of Justin’s death, see especially Holland, in Smith and Wace, III. p. 562 sq.

⁹⁷Of this cynic philosopher Crescens we know only what is told us by Justin and Tatian, and they paint his character in the blackest colors. Doubtless there was sufficient ground for their accusations; but we must remember that we have his portrait only from the pen of his bitterest enemies. In the Acta Crescens is not mentioned in connection with the death of Justin,-an omission which is hardly, to be explained, except upon the supposition of historical truthfulness. Eusebius’ report here seems to rest solely upon the testimony of Tatian (see §§8 and 9, below), but the passage of Tatian which he cites does not prove his point; it simply proves that Crescens plotted against Justin; whether his plotting was successful is not stated, and the contrary seems rather to be implied (see note 13, below).

⁹⁸Harnack thinks that Eusebius at this point wishes to convey the false impression that he quotes from the second apology, whereas he really quotes from what was to him the first, as can be seen from chap. 17. But such conduct upon the part of Eusebius would be quite inexplicable (at the beginning of the very next chapter, e.g., he refers to this same apology as the first), and it is far better to refer the words en th dedhlwmenh apologia to chap. 13 sq., where the apology is quoted repeatedly.

¹⁰⁰kagw oun. In the previous chapter (quoted by Eusebius in the next chapter) Justin has been speaking of the martyrdom of various Christians, and now goes on to express his expectation that he, too, will soon suffer death.

¹⁰¹culw entinaghnai. Compare Acts xvii. 24, and see Otto’s note on this passage, in his edition of Justin’s Apology (Corpus Apol. Christ. I. p. 204). He says: culin erat truncus foramina habens, quibus pedes captivorum immit/bantur, ut securius in carcere servarentur aut tormentis vexarentur ("a culon was a block, with holes in which the feet of captives were put, in order that they might be kept more securely in prison, or might be afflicted With tortures").

¹⁰²This accusation was very commonly made against the Christians in the second century. See above, chap. 7, note 20.

¹⁰⁴This saying of Socrates is given by Justin as follows: all outi ge pro thj alhqeiaj timhteoj anhr, “a man must not be honored before the truth” (from Plato’s Republic, Bk. X.). It is hard to say why Eusebius should have omitted it. Perhaps it was so well known that he did not think it necessary to repeat it, taking for granted that the connection would suggest the same to every reader, or it is possible that the omission is the fault of a copyist, not of Eusebius himself.

Eusebius has been accused by Dembowski, Zahn, Harnack, and others of practicing deception at this point. The passage from Tatian’s Oratio ad Graecos, which Eusebius appeals to for testimony in regard to Justin’s death, and which he quotes just below, is not given by him exactly as it stands in the extant text of the Oratio. In the latter we read, “He who taught that death should be despised was himself so greatly in fear of it, that he endeavored to inflict death as if it were an evil upon Justin, and indeed on me also, because when preaching he had proved that the philosophers were gluttons and impostors.” The difference between the two texts consists in the substitution of the word megalw for the words kai eme wj; and it is claimed that this alteration was intentionally made by Eusebius. As the text stands in Tatian, the passage is far from proving that Justin’s death was caused by the machinations of Crescens, for Tatian puts himself on a level with Justin as the object of these machinations, and of course since they did not succeed in his case, there is no reason to suppose that they succeeded in Justin’s case. It is claimed, therefore, that Justin, realizing this, struck out the kai eme wj in order to permit the reader to gather from the passage that Tatian meant to imply that the plots of Crescens were successful, and resulted in Justin’s death. Before accepting this conclusion, however, it may be well to realize exactly what is involved in it. The change does not consist merely in the omission of the words kai eme wj, but in the substitution for them of the word megalw. It cannot, therefore, be said that Eusebius only omitted some words, satisfying his conscience that there was no great harm in that; whoever made the change, if he did it intentionally, directly falsified the text, and substituted the other word for the sake of covering up his alteration; that is, he committed an act of deceit of the worst kind, and deliberately took steps to conceal his act. Certainly such conduct is not in accord with Eusebius’ general character, so far as we can ascertain it from his writings. Even Zahn and Harnack, who accuse him of intentional deception here, yet speak of his general conscientiousness, and treat this alteration as one which Eusebius allowed himself to make while, at the same time, his “conscientiousness did not permit him even this time to change truth completely into untruth.” But if he could allow himself to make so deliberate an alteration, and then cover the change by inserting another word, there is little cause to speak of “conscientiousness” in connection with the matter; if he could do that, his conscience would certainly permit him to make any false quotations, however great, so long as he thought he could escape detection. But few would care to accuse Eusebius of possessing such a character. Certainly if he possessed it, we should find clearer traces of it than we do in his History, where we have the opportunity to control a large portion of his statements on an immense variety of subjects. Moreover, for such a grave act of deception as Eusebius is supposed to have committed, some adequate ground must have existed. But what ground was there? The only motive suggested is that he desired to appear to possess specific knowledge about the manner of Justin’s death, when in fact he did not possess it. It is not maintained that he had any larger motive, such as reconciling apparent contradictions in sacred records, or shedding an added luster upon the Christian religion, for neither of these purposes has any relation to the statement in regard to Crescens’ connection with Justin’s death. Solely then for the sake of producing the impression that he knew more about Justin’s death than he did, he must have made the change. But certainly when we realize how frequently Eusebius directly avows his ignorance on paints far more important (to his mind) than this (e.g., the dates of the Jerusalem bishops, which he might so easily have invented), and when we consider how sober his history is in comparison with the accounts of the majority of his contemporaries, both Pagan and Christian, how few fables he introduces, how seldom he embellishes the narratives which he finds related in his sources with imaginary figments of his own brain,-when, in fact, no such instances can be found elsewhere, although, writing in the age he did, and for the public for whom he did, he might have invented so many stories without fear of detection, as his successors during the ancient and middle ages were seldom loath to do,-when all this is taken into consideration, we should hesitate long before we accuse Eusebius of such deceptive conduct as is implied in the intentional alteration of Tatian’s account at this point. It has been quite the custom to accuse Eusebius of intentional deviations from the truth here and there but it must be remembered that he was either honest or dishonest, and if he ever deliberately and intentionally deviated from the truth, his general character for truthfulness is gone, unless the deviation were only in some exceptional case, where the pressure to misrepresentation was unusually strong, under which circumstances his reputation for veracity in general might not be seriously impaired. But the present instance is not such an one, and if he was false here on so little provocation, why should we think his character such as to guarantee truthfulness in any place where falsehood might be more desirable?

The fact is, however, that the grounds upon which the accusation against Eusebius is based are very slender. Nothing but the strongest evidence should lead us to conclude that such a writer as he practiced such wilful deception for reasons absolutely trivial. But when we realize how little is known of the actual state of the text of Tatian’s Oratio at the time Eusebius wrote, we must acknowledge that to base an accusation on a difference between the text of the History and the extant mss. of the Oratio is at least a little hasty. An examination of the latest critical edition of Tatian’s Oratio (that of Schwartz, in Gebhardt, and Harnack’s Texte und Untersuch. IV. 1) shows us that in a number of instances the testimony of the mss. of Eusebius is accepted over against that of the few extant mss. of Tatian. The ms. of Tatian which Eusebius used was therefore admittedly different at a number of points from all our existing mss. of Tatian. It is consequently not at all impossible that the ms. which he used read mrgalw instead of kai eme wj. It happens, indeed, to be a fact that our three mss. of Tatian all present variations at this very point (one reads kai eme wj, another, kai eme oion, another, kai eme ouj), showing that the archetype, whatever it was, either offered difficulties to the copyists, or else was partially illegible, and hence required conjectural emendations or additions. It will be noticed that the closing verb of this sentence is in the singular, so that the mention of both Justin and Tatian in the beginning of the sentence may well have seemed to some copyist quite incongruous, and it is not difficult to suppose that under such circumstances, the text at this point being in any case obscure or mutilated, such a copyist permitted himself to make an alteration which was very clever and at the same time did away with all the trouble. Textual critics will certainly find no difficulty in such an assumption. The mss. of Tatian are undoubtedly nearer the original form at this point than those of Eusebius, but we have no good gounds for supposing that Eusebius did not follow the ms. which lay before him.

The question as to Eusebius’ interpretation of the passage as he found it is quite a different one. It contains no direct statement Justin met his death in consequence of the plots of Crescens; and finding no mention of such a fact in the Acts of Martyrdom of Justin, we may dismiss it as unhistorical and refuse to accept Eusebius’ interpretation of Tatian’s words. To say, however, that Eusebius intentionally misinterpreted those words is quite unwarranted. He found in Justin’s, work an expressed expectation that he would meet his death in this way, and he found in Tatian’s work the direct statement that Crescens did plot Justin’s death as the latter had predicted he would. There was nothing more natural than to conclude that Tatian meant to imply that Crescens had succeeded, for why did he otherwise mention the matter at all, Eusebius might well say, looking at the matter from his point of view, as an historian interested at that moment in the fact of Justin’s death. He does undoubtedly show carelessness and lack of penetration in interpreting the passage as be does; but if he had been aware of the defect in the evidence he presents, and had yet wished deceitfully to assert the fact as a fact, he would certainly have omitted the passage altogether, or he would have bolstered it up with the statement that other writers confirmed his conclusion,-a statement which only a thoroughly and genuinely honest man would have scrupled to make. Finally, to return to the original charge of falsification of the sources, he realized that the text of Tatian, with the kai eme wj, did not establish Justin’s death at the instigation of Crescens, he must have realized at the same time that his altered text, while it might imply it, certainly did not absolutely prove it, and hence he would not have left his conclusion, which he stated as a demonstrated fact, to rest upon so slender a basis, when he might so easily have adduced any number of oral traditions in confirmation of it. If he were dishonest enough to alter the text, he would not have hesitated to state in general terms that the fact is ”also supported by tradition.” We conclude, finally, that he read the passage as we how find it in the mss. of his History, and that his interpretation of the passage, while false, was not intentionally so.

The attacks upon Eusebius which have been already referred to are to be found in Dembowski’s Quellen der christlichen Apologetik, I. p. 60; Zahn’s Tatian’s Diatessaron, p. 275 sq., and Harnack’s Ueberlieferung der griech. Apologeten, p. 141 sq. Semisch (Justin der Märtyrer, I. 53) takes for granted that Eusebius followed the text of Tatian which lay before him, but does not attempt to prove it.

¹⁰⁶Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos, c. 18. It is quite probable that Tatian is here appealing, not to a written work of Justin’s, but to a statement which he had himself heard him make. See Harnack’s Ueberlieferung der griech. Apologeten, p. 130. Harnack is undoubtedly correct in maintaining that Tatian’s Oratio is quite independent of Justin’s Apology and other writings.

¹⁰⁸Eusebius in this chapter quotes what we now know as Justin’s, second Apology, calling it his first. It is plain that the two were but one to him. See chap. 18, note 3.

¹¹⁰Our authorities are divided between hmin and umin, but I have followed Heinichen in adopting the former, which has much stronger ms. support, and which is in itself at least as natural as the latter.

¹¹¹Of this Ptolemaeus we know only what is told us here. Tillemont, Ruinart, and others have fixed the date of his martyrdom as 166, or thereabouts. But inasmuch as the second Apology is now commonly regarded as an appendix to, or as a part of, the first, and was at any rate written during the reign of Antoninus Pius, the martyrdom of Ptolemaeus must have taken place considerably earlier than the date indicated, in fact in all probability as early as 152 (at about which time the Apology was probably written). We learn from the opening of the second Apology that the martyrdoms which are recorded in the second chapter, and the account of which Eusebius here quotes, happened very shortly before the composition of the Apology (xqez de kai prwhn, “yesterday and the day before").

¹¹²‘Ourbikioj, as all the mss. of Eusebius give the name. In Justin the form ‘Ourbikoj occurs, which is a direct transcription of the Latin Urbicus.

¹¹⁶Justin, Apol. II. 3. These words, in Justin’s Apology, follow immediately the long accotrot quoted just above.

¹¹⁷Eusebius apparently cites here only the works which he had himself seen, which accounts for his omission of the work against Marcion mentioned above, in chap. 11.

¹¹⁸This Apology is the genuine work of Justin, and is still extant in two late and very faulty mss., in which it is divided into two, and the parts are commonly known as Justin’s First and Second Apologies, though they were originally one. The best edition of the original is that of Otto in his Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum; English translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I. p. 163 ff. Eusebius, in his Chronicle, places the date of its composition as 141, but most critics are now agreed in putting it ten or more years later; it must, however, have been written before the death of Antoninus Pius (161). See Schaff, Ch. Hist. II. p. 716.

¹¹⁹Eusebius here, as in chap. 16 above, ascribes to Justin a second Apology, from which, however, he nowhere quotes. From Eusebius the tradition has come down through history that Justin wrote two apologies, and the tradition seems to be confirmed by the existing mss. of Justin, which give two. But Eusebius’ two cannot have corresponded to the present two; for, from chap. 8, §§16 and 17, it is plain that to Eusebius our two formed one complete work. And it is plain, too, from internal evidence (as is now very generally admitted; Wieseler’s arguments against this, in his Christenverfolgungen, p. 104 ff., are not sound), that the two were originally one, our second forming simply a supplement to the first. What, then, has become of the second Apology mentioned by Eusebius? There is much difference of opinion upon this point. But the explanation given by Harnack (p. 171 ff.) seems the most probable one. According to his theory, the Apology of Athenagoras (of whom none of the Fathers, except Methodius and Philip of Side, seem to have had any knowledge) was attributed to Justin by a copyist of the third century,-who altered the address so as to throw it into Justin’s time,-and as such it came into the hands of Eusebius, who mentions it among the works of Justin. That he does not quote from it may be due to the fact that it contained nothing suited to his purpose, or it is possible that he had some suspicions about it; the last, however, is not probable, as he nowhere hints at them. That some uncertainty, however, seemed to hang about the work is evident. The erasure of the name of Athenagores and the substitution of Justin’s name accounts for the almost total disappearance of the former from history. This Apology and his treatise on the resurrection first appear again under his name in the eleventh century, and exist now in seventeen mss. (see Schaff, II. 731). The traditional second Apology of Justin having thus after the eleventh century disappeared, his one genuine Apology was divided by later copyists, so that we still have apparently two separate apologies.

¹²⁰This and the following were possibly genuine works of Justin; but, as they are no longer extant, it is impossible to speak with certainty. The two extant works, Discourse to the Greeks (Oratio ad Graecos) and Hortatory Address to the Greeks (Cohortatio ad Graecos), which are translated in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, I. p. 271-289, are to be regarded as the productions of later writers, and are not to be identified with the two mentioned here (although Otto defends them both, and Semisch defends the latter).

¹²¹We have no reason to think that this work was not genuine, but it is no longer extant, and therefore certainty in the matter is impossible. It is not to be identified with the extant work upon the same subject (translated in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, I. p. 290-293), which is the production of a later writer.

¹²²This work and the following have entirely disappeared, but were genuine productions of Justin, for all that we know to the contrary.

¹²³This is a genuine work of Justin, and is still extant (translated in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, I. p. 194-270). Its exact date is uncertain, but it was written after the Apology (to which it refers in chap. 120), and during the reign of Antoninus Pius (137-161).

Of Trypho, whom Eusebius characterizes as “a most distinguished man among the Hebrews,” we know nothing beyond what we can gather from the dialogue itself.

¹²⁹Of the many extant and non-extant works attributed to Justin by tradition, all, or the most of them (except the seven mentioned by Eusebius, and the work Against Marcion, quoted by Irenaeus,-see just below,-and the Syntagma Contra omnes Haer.), are the productions of later writers.

¹³¹Irenaeus, V. 26. 2. Irenaeus does not name the work which he quotes here, and the quotation occurs in none of Justin’s extant works, but the context and the sense of the quotation itself seem to point to the same work, Against Marcion.

¹³³The reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus mentioned at the end of chap. 14.

¹³⁴As was remarked in chap. 11, note 18, Anicetus held office until 165 or 167, i.e. possibly until the seventh year of Marcus Aurelius. The date therefore given here for the accession of Soter is at least a year out of the way. The Armenian Chron. puts his accession in the 236th Olympiad, i.e. the fourth to the seventh year of this reign, while the version of Jerome puts it in the ninth year. From Bk. V. chap. 1 we learn that he held office eight years, andthis is the figure given by both versions of the Chron. In chap. 23 Eusebius quotes from a letter of Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, addressed to Soter, in which he remarks that the Corinthian church have been reading on the Lord’s day an epistle written to them by Soter. It was during his episcopate that Montanus labored in Asia Minor, and the anonymous author of the work called Praedestinatus (written in the middle of the fifth century) states that Soter wrote a treatise against him which was answered by Tertullian, but there seems to be no foundation for the tradition. Two spurions epistles and several decretals have been falsely ascribed to him.

¹³⁷Of Agrippinus we know only what Eusebius tells us here and in Bk. V. chap. 9, where he says that he held office twelve years. Jerome’s version of the Chron. agrees as to the duration of his episcopate, but puts his accession in the sixth year of Marcus Aurelius. In the Armenian version a curious mistake occurs in connection with his name. Under the ninth year of Marcus Aurelius are found the words, Romanorum ecclesiae XII. episcopus constitutus est Agrippinus annis IX., and then Eleutherus (under the thirteenth year of the same ruler) is made the thirteenth bishop, while Victor, his successor, is not numbered, and Zephyrinus the successor of the latter, is made number fourteen. It is of course plain enough that the transcriber by an oversight read Romanorum ecclesiae instead of Alexandrinae ecclesiae, and then having given Soter just above/as the eleventh bishop he felt compelled to make Agrippinus the twelfth, and hence reversed the two numbers, nine and twelve, given in connection with Agrippinus and made him the twelfth bishop, ruling nine years, instead of the ninth bishop, ruling twelve years. He then found himself obliged to make Eleutherus the thirteenth, but brought the list back into proper shape again by omitting to number Victor as the fourteenth. It is hard to understand how a copyist could commit such a flagrant error and not discover it when he found himself subsequently led into difficulty by it. It simply shows with what carelessness the work of translation or of transcription was done. As a result of the mistake no ninth bishop of Alexandria is mentioned, though the proper interval of twelve years remains between the death of Celadion and the accession of Julian.

¹³⁹Of the life and character of Cornelius and Eros we know nothing. The Chron. of Eusebius puts the accession of Cornelins into the twelfth year of Trajan (128 a.d.), and the accession of his successor Eros into the fifth year of Antoninus Pius (142). These dates, however, are quite unreliable, and we have no means of correcting them (see Harnack’s Zeit des Ignatius, p. 12 sqq.). Theophilus, the successor of Eros we have reason to think became bishop about the middle of Marcus Aurelius’ reign and hence the Chron., which puts his accession into the ninth year of that reign, (169 a.d.) cannot be far out of the way. This gives us the approximate date for the death of Eros.

¹⁴²On Hegesippus’ life and writings, see the next chapter. He has been already mentioned in Bk. II. chap. 23; Bk. III. chaps. II, 16, 20, 32; and Bk. IV. chap. 8.

¹⁵⁰Irenaeus was born in Asia Minor, probably between the years 120 and 130. There is great uncertainty as to the date of his birth, some bringing it down almost to the middle of the second century, while Dodwell carried it back to the year 97 or 98. But these extremes are wild; and a careful examination of all the sources which can throw any light on the subject leads to the conclusion adopted by Lipsius, and stated above. In Asia Minor he was a pupil of Polycarp (cf. the fragment of Irenaeus’ letter to Florinus, quoted by Eusebius, Bk. V. chap. 20). The Moscow ms. of the Martyrium Polycarpi states that Irenaeus was in Rome at the time of Polycarp’s martyrdom (155 or 156 a.d.), and appeals for its authority to a statement in Irenaeus’ own writings, which does not exist in any extant work, but may have been taken from an authentic work now lost (cf. Gebhardt, in the Zeitschrift für die hist. Theologie, 1875, p. 362 sqq.). But whatever truth there may be in the report, we find him, at the time of the great persecution of Lyons and Vienne (described in the next book, chap. 1), a presbyter of the church at Lyons, and carrying a letter from the confessors of that church to the bishop Eleutherus of Rome (see Bk. V. chap. 4). After the death of Pothinus. which took place in 177 (see Bk. V. praef. note 3, and chap. 1, §29), Irenaeus became bishop of Lyons, according to Bk. V. chap. 5. The exact date of his accession we do not know; but as Pothinus died during the persecution, and Irenaeus was still a presbyter after the close of the persecution in which he met his death, he cannot have succeeded immediately. Since Irenaeus, however, was, according to Eusebius, Pothinus’ next successor, no great length of time can have elapsed between the death of the latter and the accession of the former. At the time of the paschal controversy, while Victor was bishop of Rome, Irenaeus was still bishop (according to Bk. V. chap. 23). This was toward the close of the second century. His death is ordinarily put in the year 202 or 203, on the assumption that he suffered martyrdom under Septimius Severus. Jerome is the first to call him a martyr, and that not in his de vir. ill., but in his Comment. in Esaiam (chap. 64), which was written some years later. It is quite possible that he confounded the Irenæus in question with another of the same name, who met his death in the persecution of Diocletian. Gregory of Tours first gives us a detailed account of the martyrdom, and in the Middle Ages Irenæus always figured as a martyr. But all this has no weight at all, when measured against the silence of Tertullian, Hippolytus, Eusebius, and all the earlier Fathers. Their silence must be accepted as conclusive evidence that he was not a martyr; and if he was not, there is no reason for assigning his death to the year 202 or 203. As we have no trace of him, however, subsequent to the time of the paschal controversy, it is probable that he died, at the latest, soon after the beginning of the third century.

Irenaeus was the most important of the polemical writers of antiquity, and his works formed a storehouse from which all subsequent heresiographers drew. He is quoted very frequently by Eusebius as an authority for events which happened during the second century, and is treated by him with the most profound respect as one of the greatest writers of the early Church. Jerome devotes an unusually long chapter of his de vir. ill. to him (chap. 35), but tells us nothing that is not found in Eusebius’ History. His greatest work, and the only one now extant, is his Elegxoj kai anarroph thj yeuownumou gnwsewj, which is commonly cited under the brief title proj aireseij, or Adversus Haereses ("Against Heresies"). It consists of five books, and is extant only in a very ancient and literal Latin translation; though the numerous extracts made from it by later writers have preserved for us the original Greek of nearly the whole of the first book and many fragments of the others. There are also extant numerous fragments of an ancient Syriac version of the work. It was written-or at least the third book was-while Eleutherus was bishop of Rome, i.e. between 174 and 189 (see Bk. III. chap. 3, §3, of the work itself). We are not able to fix the date of its compostion more exactly. The author’s primary object was to refute Valentinianism (cf. Bk. I. praef., and Bk. III. praef.), but in connection with that subject he takes occasion to say considerable about other related heresies. The sources of this great work have been carefully discussed by Lipsius, in his Quellenkritik des Epiphanios, and in his Quellen der ältesten Ketzergeschichte, and by Harnack in his Quellenkritik der Geschichte des Gnosticismus (see also the article by Lipsius mentioned below). Of the other works of Irenæus, many of which Eusebius refers to, only fragments or bare titles have been preserved. Whether he ever carried out his intention (stated in Adv. Haer. I. 27. 4, and III. 12. 12) of writing a special work against Marcion, we cannot tell. Eusebius mentions this intention in Bk. V. chap. 20; and in Bk. IV. chap. 25 he classes Irenaeus among the authors who had written against Marcion. But we hear nothing of the existence of the work from Irenaeus’ successors, and it is possible that Eusebius is thinking in chap. 25 only of the great work Adv. Haer. For a notice of Irenaeus’ epistle On Schism, addressed to Blastus, and the one On Sovereignty, addressed to Florinus, see Bk. V. chap. 20, notes 2 and 3; and on his treatise On the Ogdoad, see the same chapter, note 4. On his epistle to Victor in regard to the paschal dispute, see below, Bk. V. chap. 24, note 13. Other epistles upon the same subject are referred to by Eusebius at the close of the same chapter (see note 21 on that chapter). In Bk. V. chap. 26, Eusebius mentions four other works of Irenaeus (see notes on that chapter). In addition to the works referred to by Eusebius, there are extant a number of fragments which purport to be from other works of Irenaeus. Some of them are undoubtedly genuine, others not. Upon these fragments and the works to which they belong, see Harvey’s edition of Irenaeus’ works, II. p. 431 sq., and Lipsius in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. article Irenaeus, p. 265 sqq.

The best edition of Irenaeus’ works is that of Harvey (Cambridge, 1857, in 2 vols.). In connection with this edition, see Loof’s important article on Irenaeushandschriften, in Kirchengeschichtliche Studien, p. 1-93 (Leipzig, 1888). The literature on Irenaeus is very extensive (for a valuable list, see Schaff’s Ch. Hist. II. 746), but a full and complete biography is greatly to be desired. Lipsius’ article, referred to just above, is especially valuable.

¹⁵¹wn kai eij hmaj thj apostolikhj paradosewj, h thj ugiouj pistewj eggrafoj kathlqrn orqodocia. Compare chap. 14, §4.

¹⁵²The five books of Hegesippus, upomnhmata or Memoirs, are unfortunately lost; but a few fragments are preserved by Eusebius, and one by Photius, which have been collected by Routh, Rel. Sac. I. 205-219, and by Grabe, Spicilegium, II. 203-214. This work has procured for him from some sources the title of the “Father of Church History,” but the title is misplaced, for the work appears to have been nothing more than a collection of reminiscences covering the apostolic and post-apostolic ages, and drawn partly from written, partly from oral sources, and in part from his own observation, and quite without chronological order and historical completeness. We know of no other works of his. Of Hegesippus himself we know very little. He apparently wrote his work during the episcopate of Eleutherus (175-189 a.d.), for he does not name his successor. How old he was at that time we do not know, but he was very likely a man past middle life, and hence was probably born early in the second century. With this, his own statement in the passage quoted by Eusebius, in chap. 8, that the deification of Antinoüs took place in his own day is quite consistent. The words of Jerome (de vir. ill. 22), who calls him a vicinus apostolicorum temporum, are too indefinite to give us any light, even if they rest upon any authority, as they probably do not. The journey which is mentioned in this chapter shows that his home must have been somewhere in the East, and there is no reason to doubt that he was a Hebrew Christian (see below, note 16).

¹⁵³Of this Primus we know only what Hegesippus tells us here. We do not know the exact date of his episcopate, but it must have been at least in part synchronous with the episcopate of Plus of Rome (see chap. 11 note 14), for it was while Hegesippus was on his way to Rome that he saw Primus; and since he remained in Rome until the accession of Anicetus he must have arrived there while Pius, Anicetus’ predecessor, was bishop, for having gone to Rome on a visit, he can hardly have remained there a number of years.

¹⁵⁴The interpretation of this sentence is greatly disputed. The Greek reads in all the mss. genomenoj de en ‘Rwmh diadoxhn epoihsamn mexrij ‘Anikhtou, and this reading is confirmed by the Syriac version (according to Lightfoot). If these words be accepted as authentic, the only possible rendering seems to be the one which has been adopted by many scholars: “Being in Rome, I composed a catalogue of bishops down to Anicetus.” This rendering is adopted also by Lightfoot, who holds that the list of Hegesippus is reproduced by Epiphanius in his Panarium XXVII. 6 (see his essay in The Academy, May 27, 1887, where this theory is broached, and compare the writer’s notice of it in Harnack’s Theol. Lit. Zeitung 1887, No. 18). But against this rendering it must be said, first, that it is very difficult to translate the words diadoxhn epoihsamhn, “I composed a catalogue of bishops,” for diadoxh nowhere else, so far as I am aware, means “catalogue,” and nowhere else does the expression diadoxhn poieisqai occur. Just below, the same word signifies “succession,” and this is its common meaning. Certainly, if Hegesippus wished to say that he had composed a catalogue of bishops, he could not have expressed himself more obscurely. In the second place, if Hegesippus had really composed a catalogue of bishops and referred to it here, how does it happen that Eusebius, who is so concerned to ascertain the succession of bishops in all the leading sees nowhere gives that catalogue, and nowhere even refers to it. He does give Irenaens’ catalogue of the Roman bishops in Bk. V. chap. 6, but gives no hint there that he knows anything of a similar list composed by Hegesippus. In fact, it is very difficult to think that Hegesippus, in this passage, can have meant to say that he had composed a catalogue of bishops, and it is practically impossible to believe that Eusebius can have understood him to mean that.But the words diadoxhn epoihsamhn, if they can be made to mean anything at all, can certainly be made to mean nothing else than the composition of a catalogue, and hence it seems necessary to make some correction in the text. It is significant that Rufinus at this point reads permansi ibi, which shows that he at least did not understand Hegesippus to be speaking of a list of bishops. Rufinus’ rendering gives us a hint of what must have stood in the original from which he drew, and so Savilius, upon the margin of his ms., substituted for diadoxhn the word diatribhn, probably simply as a conjecture, but possibly upon the authority of some other ms. now lost. He has been followed by some editors, including Heinichen, who prints the word diatribhn in the text. Val. retains diadoxhn in his text, but accepts diatribhn as the true reading, and so translates. This reading is now very widely adopted; and it, or some other word with the same meaning, in all probability stood in the original text. In my notice of Lightfoot’s article, I suggested the word diagwghn, which, while not so common as diatribhn, is yet used with poieisqai in the same sense, and its very uncommonness would account more easily for the change to the much commoner diadoxhn, which is epigraphically so like it.

The word mexri is incorrectly translated apud by Valesius, who reads, mansi apud Anicetum. He is followed by Crusè, who translates “I made my stay with Anicetus"; but mexri can mean only “until.” Hegesippus therefore, according to his own statement, came to Rome before the accession of Anicetus and remained there until the latter became bishop. See chap. 11, note 19, for the relation of this statement to that of Eusebius.

For particulars in regard to Anicetus, see chap. 11, note 18; on Soter, see chap. 19, note 2, and on Eleutherus, Bk. V. Preface, note 2.

¹⁵⁶Dia touto. Valesius proposes to read mexri toutou, which certainly makes better sense and which finds some support in the statement made by Eusebius in Bk. III. chap. 32, §7. But all the mss. have dia touto, and, as Stroth remarks, the illogical use of “therefore” at this point need not greatly surprise us in view of the general looseness of Hegesippus’ style. The phrase is perhaps used proleptically, with a reference to what follows.

¹⁵⁷Of Thebuthis we know only what is told us here. The statement that he became a heretic because he was not chosen bishop has about as much foundation as most reports of the kind. It was quite common for the Fathers to trace back the origin of schisms to this cause (compare e.g. Tertullian’s Adv. Val. 4, and De Bapt. 17).

¹⁵⁸The seven sects are mentioned by Hegesippus just below. Harnack maintains that Hegesippus in his treatment of heresies used two sources, one of them being the lost Syntagma of Justin (see his Quellenkritik des Gnosticismus, p. 37 sqq.). Lipsius, who in his Quellen der Ketzergesch. combats many of Harnack’s positions, thinks it possible that Hegesippus may have had Justin’s Syntagma before him.

¹⁶⁰Cleobius is occasionally mentioned as a heretic by ecclesiastical writers, but none of them seems to know anything more about him than is told here by Hegesippus (see the article Cleobius in the Dict. of Christ. Biog.).

¹⁶¹Trustworthy information in regard to Dositheus is very scanty, but it is probable that he was one of the numerous Samaritan false messiahs, and lived at about the time of, or possibly before, Christ. “It seems likely that the Dositheans were a Jewish or Samaritan ascetic sect, something akin to the Essenest existing from before our Lord’s time, and that the stories connecting their founder with Simon Magus and with John the Baptist [see the Clementine Recognitions, II. 8 and Homilies, II. 24], may be dismissed as merely mythical” (Salmon, in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. art. Dositheus).

¹⁶²Epiphanius and Theodoret also mention the Goratheni, but apparently knew no more about them than Hegesippus tells us here Epiphanius classing them among the Samaritans, and Theodoret deriving them from Simon Magus.

¹⁶³The name Masbotheus us supported by no ms. Authority, but is given by Rufinus and by Nicephorus, and is adopted by most editors. The majority of the mss. read simply Masbwqaioi or Masbwqeoi. Just below, Hefessippus gives the Masbotheans as one of the seven Jewish sects, while here he says they were derived from them. This contradiction Harnack explains by Hegesippus’ use of two different sources, an unknown oral or written one, and Justin’s Syntagma. The list of heresies given here he maintains stood in Justin’s Syntagma, but the derivation of them from the seven Jewish sects cannot have been Justin’s work, nor can the list of the seven sects have been made by Justin, for he gives quite a different list in his Dialogue, chap. 80. Lipsius, p. 25, thinks the repetition of the “Masbotheans” is more easily explained as a mere oversight or accident. The Apostolic Const. VI. 6 name the Masbotheans among Jewish sects, describing them as follows: “The Basmotheans, who deny providence, and say that the world is ruled by spontaneous motion, and take away the immortality of the soul.” From what source this description was taken we do not know, and cannot decide as to its reliability. Salmon (in the Dict. of Christ. Biog.) remarks that “our real knowledge is limited to the occurrence of the name in Hegesippus, and there is no reason to think that any of these who have undertaken to explain it knew any more about the matter than ourselves.”

¹⁶⁴On Menander and the Menandrianists, see Bk. II. chap. 26; on the Carpocratians, chap. 7, note 17; on the Valentinians, see chap. 11, note 1; on the Basilidaeans, chap. 7, note 7; on the Saturnilians, chap. 7, note 6.

¹⁶⁵There is some dispute about this word. The Greek is Markianisyyai, which Harnack regards as equivalent to Markiwnisttai, or “followers of Marcion,” but which Lipsius takes to mean “followers of Marcus.” The latter is clearly epigraphically more correct, but the reasons for reading in this place Marcionites, or followers of Marcion, are strong enough to outweigh other considerations (see Harnack, p. 31 ff. and Lipsius, p. 29 ff.).

¹⁶⁶These are the seven Jewish heresies mentioned above by Hegesippus. Justin (Dial. chap. 80) and Epiphanius (Anaceph.) also name seven Jewish sects, but they_ are not the same as those mentioned here (those of Justin: Sadducees, Genistae, Meristae, Galileans, Hellenianians, Pharisees, Baptists). Epiphanius (Vol. I. p. 230, Dindorf’s ed.,-Samaritan sects 4: Gorothenes, Sebouaioi, Essenes, Dositheans; Jewish 7: Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Hemerobaptists, ‘Ossaioi, Nazarenes, Herodians). See Jess, in the Zeitschr. für hist. Theol. 1865, p. 45. sq.

¹⁶⁷The exact meaning of this sentence is very difficult to determine. The Greek reads:ek te tou kaq ‘Ebraiouj euaggeliou kai tou Suriakou kai idiwj ek thj ‘Ebraidoj dialektou tina tiqhsin. It is grammatically necessary to supply euaggeliou after Suriakou, and this gives us a Syriac gospelin addition to the Hebrew. Some have concluded that Tatian’s Diatessaron is meant by it, but this will not do; for, as Handmann remarks, the fact that Hegesippus quotes from the work or works referred to is cited as evidence that he was a Hebrew. Hilgenfeld supposes that the Chaldaeo syroque scriptum evangelium secundum Hebraeos, which Jerome mentions, is referred to, and that the first-named euaggelion kaq ‘Ebraiouj is a Greek translation, while the to Suriakon represents the original; so that Hegesippus is said to have used both the original and the translation. Eusebius, however, could not have made the discovery that he used both. unless the original and the translation differed in their contents, of which we have no hint, and which in itself is quite improbable. As the Greek reads, however, there is no other explanation possible, unless the to Suriakon euaggelion be taken to represent some other unknown Hebrew gospel, in which case the following clause refers to the citations from both of the gospels. That such a gospel existed, however, and was referred to by Eusebius so casually, as if it were a well-known work, is not conceivable. The only resource left, so far as the writer can discover, is to antend the text, with Eichhorn, Nicholson, and Handmann, by striking out the first kai. The tou Suriakou then becomes a description of the euaggelion kaq ‘Ebraiouj, “The Syriac Gospel according to the Hebrews.” By the Syriac we are to understand, of course, the vulgar dialect, which had before the time of Christ taken the place of the Hebrew, and which is ordinarily called Aramaic. Eusebius then, on this interpretation, first qualifies the Gospel of the Hebrews more exactly, and then adds that Hegesippus quotes from the Hebrew original of it (ek thj ‘Ebraidoj dialektou), and not from a translation; e.g. from the Greek translation, which we know existed early. There is, to be sure, no ms. authority for the alteration of the text, and yet the sefise of the passage seems to demand it, and I have consequently omitted the kai in my translation. Upon the interpretation of the passage, see Handmann’s Hebräer-Evangelium, p. 32 ff., and upon the Gospel according to the Hebrews, see above, Bk. III. chap. 25, note 24, and chap. 27, note 8.

¹⁶⁸Eusebius had abundant opportunity to learn from Hegesippus0 works whether or not he was a Hebrew Christian, and hence we cannot doubt that his conclusion in regard to Hegesippus0 nationality (whether based merely upon the premises given here, or partly upon other facts unknown to us) is correct. His nationality explains the fact that he deduces the Christian heresies from Jewish, and not, like other writers, from heathen roots. There is, however, no reason, with Baur and others, to suppose that Hegesippus was a Judaizer. In fact, Eusebius’ respectful treatment of him is in itself conclusive proof that his writings cannot have revealed heretical notions.

¹⁶⁹This phrase (panaretoj sofia) was very frequently employed among the Fathers as a title of the Book of Proverbs. Clement of Rome (1 Cor. lvii.) is, so far as I know, the first so to use it. The word panaretoj is applied also to the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon, by Epiphanius (de mens. et pond. §4) and others. Among the Fathers the Book of Sirach, the Solomonic Apocrypha, and the Book of Proverbs all bore the common title sofia, “Wisdom,” which well defines the character of each of them; and this simple title is commoner than the compound phrase which occurs in this passage (cf. e.g. Justin Martyr’s Dial. c. 129, and Melito, quoted by Eusebius in chap. 26, below). For further particulars, see especially Lightfoot’s edition of the epistles of Clement of Rome, p. 164.

¹⁷⁰Eusebius speaks, in this chapter, of seven Catholic epistles, and of one addressed to an individual. None of these epistles are now extant, though Eusebius here, and in Bk. II. chap. 25, gives us four brief but interesting fragments from the Epistle to the Romans. We know of the other epistles only what Eusebius tells us in this chapter. That Dionysius was held in high esteem as a writer of epistles to the churches is clear, not only from Eusebius’ statement, but also from the fact that heretics thought it worth while to circulate interpolated and mutilated copies of them, as stated below. The fact that he wrote epistles to churches so widely scattered shows that he possessed an extended reputation.

Of Dionysius himself (who is, without foundation, called a martyr by the Greek Church, and a confessor by the Latin Church) we know only what we are told by Eusebius. for Jerome (de vir ill. 27) adds nothing to the account given in this chapter. In his Chron. Eusebius mentions Dionysius in connection with the eleventh year of Marcus Aurelius. According to Eusebius’ statement in this same chapter, Dionysius’ Epistle to the Romans was addressed to the bishop Soter, and as Eusebius had the epistle before him, there is no reason for doubting his report. Soter was bishop from about 167 to 175 (see above, chap. 19, note 4), and therefore the statements of the Chron. and the History are in accord. When Dionysius died we do not know, but he was no longer living in 199, for Bacchylus was bishop of Corinth at that time (see Bk. V. chap. 22). It is commonly said that Dionysius was the immediate successor of Primus, bishop of Corinth. This may be true, but we have no ground for the assumption. We know only that Primus’ episcopate was synchronous, at least in part, with that of Pius of Rome (see the previous chapter, note 2), who was bishop from about 139 or 141 to 154 or 156, and that Dionysius’ episcopate was synchronous at least an part with that of Soter of Rome (about 167 to 175).

¹⁷¹This is, so far as I am aware, the earliest mention of a church at Lacedaemon or Sparta. The bishop of Sparta is mentioned in the synodical letter of the province of Hellas to the emperor Leo (457-477 a.d.), and also still later in the Acts of the Sixth and Eighth General Synods, according to Wiltsch’s Geography and Statistics of the Church (London ed. p. 134 and 466).

¹⁷²Of this Publius we know only what Eusebius tells us here. What particular persecution is referred to we cannot tell, but Publius’ martyrdom seems to have occurred in the reign of Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius; for he was the immediate predecessor of Quadratus, who was apparently bishop at the time Dionysius was writing.

¹⁷³We know nothing more about this Quadratus, for he is to be distinguished from the prophet and from the apologist (see chap. 3, note 2). Eusebius’ words seem to imply that he was bishop at the time Dionysius was writing.

¹⁷⁶The extent of Dionysius’ influence is shown by his writing an epistle to so distant a church as that of Nicomedia in Bithynia, and also to the churches of Pontus (see below). The fact that he considers it necessary to attack Marcionism in this epistle to the Nicomedians is an indication of the wide and rapid spread of that sect,-which indeed is known to us from many sources.

¹⁷⁷Gortyna was an important city in Crete, which was early the seat of a bishop. Tradition, indeed, makes Titus the first bishop of the church there.

¹⁷⁸Of this Philip, bishop of Gortyna, and a contemporary of Dionysius, we know only what Eusebius tells us here and in chap. 25.

¹⁷⁹Amastris was a city of Pontus, which is here mentioned for the first time as the seat of a Christian church. Its bishop is referred to frequently in the Acts of Councils during the next few centuries (see also note 12, below).

¹⁸⁰This Bacchylides is perhaps identical with the Bacchylus who was afterward bishop of Corinth (Bk. V. chap. 22). Elpistus is another,vise unknown personage.

¹⁸¹This Palmas, bishop of Amastris in Pontus, presided as senior bishop over a council of the bishops of Pontus held toward the close of the century on the paschal question (see Bk. V. chap. 23). Nothing more is known of him.

¹⁸²It is quite likely, as Salmon suggests (in the Dict. of Christ. Biog.), that Dionysius, who wrote against Marcion in this epistle to the Nicomedians, also had Marcionism in view in writing on life and discipline to the churches of Pontus and Crete. It was probably in consequence of reaction against their strict discipline that he advo-cated the readmission to the Church of excommunicated offenders, in this anticipating the later practice of the Roman church, which was introduced by Callixtus and soon afterward became general, though not without bitter opposition from many quarters. Harnack (Dogmengeschichte, p. 332, note 4) throws doubt upon the correct-ness of this report of Eusebius; but such doubt is unwarranted, for Eusebius had Dionysius’ epistle before him, and the position which he represents him as taking is quite in accord with the mildness which he recommends to Pinytus, and is therefore just what we should expect. The fact that Callixtusf principle is looked upon by Terttulian and Hippolytus as an innovation does not militate at all against the possibility that Dionysius in Corinth, or other individuals in other minor churches, held the same principles some time before.

This epistle is no longer extant, nor do we know anythong about Pinytus himself except what is told us here and in chap. 21, above, where he is mentioned among the ecclesiastical writers of the day. Jerome (de vir. ill. 28) only repeats what Eusebius says, and Ruffnus, in stating that Pinytus was convinced by the epistle of Dionysius and changed his course, seems simply to have misunderstood what Eusebius says about his admiration for and praise of Dionysius. It is evident from the tone of his reply that Pinytus was not led by Dionysius’ epistle to agree with him.

This practice of the Roman church combined with other causes to secure it that position of influence and prominence which resulted in the primacy of its bishop, and finally in the papacy. The position of the Roman church, as well as its prosperity and numerical strength, gave it early a feeling that it was called upon in an especial way to exercise oversight and to care for weaker sister churches, and thus its own good offices helped to promote its influence and its power.

¹⁸⁸A probable, though not exclusive, reference to Marcion, for he was by no means the only one of that age that interpolated and mutilated the works of the apostles to fit his theories. Apostolic works true and false-circulated in great numbers, and were made the basis for the speculations and moral requirements of many of the heretical schools of the second century.

¹⁹¹Eusebius is the only Eastern writer of the early centuries to mention Theophilus and his writings. Among the Latin Fathers, Lactantius and Gennadius refer to his work, ad Autolycum; and Jerome devotes chap. 25 of his de vir. ill. to him. Beyond this there is no direct mention of Theophilus, or of his works, during the early centuries (except that of Malalas, which will be referred to below). Eusebius here calls Theophilus bishop of Antioch, and in chap. 20 makes him the sixth bishop, as does also Jerome in his de vir. ill. chap. 25. But in his epistle, ad Algas. (Migne, Ep. 121), Jerome calls him the seventh bishop of Antioch, beginning his reckoning with the apostle Peter. Eusebius, in his Chron., puts the accession of Theophilus into the ninth year of Marcus Aurelius (169); and this may be at least approximately correct. The accession of his successor Maximus is put into the seventeenth year (177); but this date is at least four years too early, for his work, ad Autolycum, quotes from a work in which the death of Marcus Aurelius (who died in 180) was mentioned, and hence cannot have been written before 181 or 182. We know that his successor, Maximus, became bishop sometime between 189 and 192, and hence Theophilus died between 181 and that time. We have only Eusebius’ words (Jerome simply repeats Eusebius’ statement) for the fact that Theophilus was bishop of Antioch (his extant works do not mention the fact, nor do those who quote from his writings), but there is no good ground for doubting the truth of the report. We know nothing more about his life.

In addition to the works mentioned in this chapter, Jerome (de vir. ill.) refers to Commentaries upon the Gospel and the book of Proverbs, in the following words: Legi sub nomine ejus in Evengelium et in Praverbia Salomonis Commentarios qui mihi cum superiorum volumnum elegantia et phrasi non videntur congruere. The commentary upon the Gospel is referred to by Jerome again in the preface to his own commentary on Matthew; and in his epistle, ad Algasiam, he speaks of a harmony of the four Gospels, by Theophilus (qui quatuor Evangelistarum in unumopus dicta campingens), which may have been identical with the commentary, or may have formed a basis for it. This commentary is mentioned by none of the Fathers before or after Jerome; and Jerome himself expresses doubts as to its genuineness, or at least he does not think that its style compares with that of the other works ascribed to Theophilus. Whether the commentary was genuine or not we have no means of deciding, for it is no longer extant. There is in existence a Latin commentary on the Gospels in four books, which bears the name of Theophilus, and is published in Otto’s Corpus Apol. Vol. VIII. p. 278-324. This was universally regarded as a spurious work until Zahn, in 1883 (in his Forschungen zur Gesch. des N. T. Canons, Theil II.) made an elaborate effort to prove it a genuine work of Theophilus of Antioch. Harnack, However, in his Texte und Unters. I. 4, p. 97-175, has shown conclusively that Zahn is mistaken, and that the extant commentary is nothing better than a Post-Nicene compilation from the works of various Latin Fathers. Zahn, in his reply to Harnack (Forschungen, Theil III. Bellage 3), still maintains that the Commentary is a genuine work of Theophilus, with large interpolations, but there is no adequate ground for such a theory; and it has found few, if any, supporters. We must conclude, then, that if Theophilus did write such a commentary, it is no longer extant.

The three books addressed to Autolycus (a heathen friend otherwise unknown to us) are still extant in three Mediaeval mss. and have been frequently published both in the original and in translation. The best edition of the original is that of Otto (Corp. Apol. Vol. VIII.); English translation by Dods, in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II. p. 85-121. The work is an apology, designed to exhibit the falsehood of idolatry and the truth of Christianity. The author was a learned writer, well acquainted with Greek philosophy; and his literary style is of a high order. He acknowledges no good in the Greek philosophers, except what they have taken from the Old. Testament writers. The genuineness of the work has been attacked, but without sufficient reason.

From Book II. chap. 30 of his ad Autol. we learn that Theophilus had written also a work On History. No such work is extant, nor is it mentioned by Eusebius or any other Father. Malalas, however, cites a number of times “The chronologist Theophilus,” and it is possible that he used this lost historical work. It is possible, on tne other hand, that he refers to some other unknown Theophilus (see Harnack, Texte und Unters. I. 1, p. 291).

¹⁹³This work against Hermogenes is no longer extant. Harnack (p. 294 ff.) gives strong grounds for supposing that it was the common source from which Tertullian, in his work ad Hermogenem, Hippolytus, in his Phil. VIII. 10 and X. 24, and Clement of Alexandria, in his Proph. Selections, 56, all drew. If this be true, as seems probable, the Hermogenes attacked by these various writers. is one man, and his chief heresy, as we learn from Tertullian and Hippolytus, was that God did not create the world out of nothing, but only formed it out of matter which, like himself, was eternally existent.

¹⁹⁴These catechetical works (tina kathxhtika biblia), which were extant in the time of Eusebius, are now lost. They are mentioned by none of the Fathers except Jerome, who speaks of alii breves elegantesque tractatus ad aedificationem Ecclesiae perti-nentes as extant in his time. We know nothing more of their nature than is thus told us by Jerome.

¹⁹⁵This work, which is also now lost, is mentioned by no other Father except Jerome, who puts it first in his list of Theophilus’ writings, but does not characterize it in any way, though he says it was extant in his time. Irenaeus, in four passages of his great work, exhibits striking parallels to Bk. II. chap. 25 of Theophilus' ad Autol., which have led to the assumption that he knew the latter work. Harnack, however, on account of the shortness of time which elapsed between the composition of the ad Autol. and Irenaeus’ work, and also on account of the nature of the resemblances between the parallel passages, thinks it improbable that Irenæus used the ad Autol., and concludes that hew as acquainted rather with Theophilus’ work against Marcion, a conclusion which accords best with the facts known to us.

¹⁹⁶Here, and in Bk. V. chap. 19, §1, Eusebius gives this hishop’s name as Maximinus. In the Chron. we find Macimoj, and in Jerome’s version Maximus, though one ms. of the latter gives Maximinus. According to the Chron. he became bishop in 177, and was succeeded by Serapion in 190. As remarked in note 1, above, the former date is incorrect, for Theophilus must have lived at least as late as 181 or 182. We cannot reach certainty in regard to the date either of his accession or of his death; but if Eusebius’ statement (in Bk. V. chap. 19), that Serapion was bishop while Commodus was still emperor, is to be believed (see further, Bk. V. chap. 19, note 1), Maximinus must have died at least as early as 192, which gives us for his episcopate some part of the period from 181 to 192. We know no particulars in regard to the life of Maximinus.

¹⁹⁸Philip’s work against Marcion which Eusebius mentions here is no longer extant, and, so far as the writer knows, is mentioned by no other Father except Jerome (de vir. ill. 30), who tells us only what Eusebius records here, using, however, the adjective praeclarum for Eusebius' dpondaiotaton.

²⁰⁰Modestus, also, is a writer known to us only from Eusebius (here, and in chap. 21) and from Jerome (de vir. ill. 32). According to the latter, the work against Marcion was still extant in his day, but he gives us no description of it. He adds, however, that a number of spurious works ascribed to Modestus were in circulation at that time (Feruntur sub nomine ejus et alia syntagmata, sed ab eruditis quasi yeudografa repundiantur). Neither these nor the genuine works are now extant, so far as we know.

²⁰¹The first extant notice of Melito, bishop of Sardis, is found in the letter addressed by Polycrates to Bishop Victor of Rome (c. 190-202 a.d.) in support of the Quartodeciman practice of the Asia Minor churches. A fragment of this letter is given by Eusebius in Bk. V. chap. 24, and from it we learn that Melito also favored the Quartodeciman practice, that he was a man whose walk and conversation were altogether under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and that he was buried at Sardis. Polycrates in this fragment calls Melito a eunuch. Whether the word is to be understood in its literal sense or is to be taken as meaning simply that Melito lived in “virgin continence” is disputed. In favor of the latter interpretation may be urged the fact that the Greek word and its Latin equivalent were very commonly used by the Fathers in this figurative sense, e.g. by Athenagores, by Tertullian, by Clement of Alexandria, by Cassianus (whose work on continence bore the title peri egkrateiaj, h peri eunouxiaj), by Jerome, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Gregory Nazianzen, &c. (see Smith and Wace’s Dict. of Christ. Biog., article Melito, and Suicer’s Thesaurus). On the other hand, such continence cannot have been a rare thing in Asia Minor in the time of Polycrates, and the fact that Melito is called specifically “the eunuch” looks peculiar if nothing more than that is meant by it. The case of Origen, who made himself a eunuch for the sake of preserving his chastity, at once occurs to us in this connection (see Renan, L'eglise chret. p. 436, and compare Justin Martyr’s Apol. I. 29). The canonical rule that no such eunuch could hold clerical office came later, and hence the fact that Melito was a bishop cannot be urged against the literal interpretation of the word here. Polycrates’ meaning hardly admits of an absolute decision, but at least it cannot be looked upon as it is by most historians as certain that he uses the word here in its figurative sense.

Polycrates says nothing of the fact that Melito was a writer, but we learn from this chapter (§4), and from Bk. VI. chap. 13, that Clement of Alexandria, in a lost work, mentioned his writings and even wrote a work in reply to one of his (see below, note 23). According to the present chapter he was a very prolific writer, and that he was a man of marked talent is clear from Jerome’s words in his de vir. ill. chap. 24 (where he refers to Tertullian’s lost work, de Ecstasi): Hujus [i.e. Melitonis] elegans el declamatorium ingenium Tertullianus in septem libris, quos scripsit adversus ecclesiam pro Montano, cavillatur, dicens eum a plerisque nos- trorum prophetam putari. In spite of the fact that Tertullian satirized Melito’s talent, he nevertheless was greatly influenced by his writings and owed much to them (see the points of contact between the two men given by Harnack, p. 250 sqq.). The statement that he was regarded by many as a prophet accords well with Polycrates’ description of him referred to above. The indications all point to the fact that Melito was decidedly ascetic in his tendencies, and that he had a great deal in common with the spirit which gave rise to Montanism and even made Tertullian a Montanist, and yet at the same time he opposed Montanism, and is therefore spoken of slightingly by Tertullian. His position, so similar to that of the Montanists, was not in favor with the orthodox theologians of the third century, and this helps to explain why, although he was such a prolific and talented writer, and although he remained orthodox, he nevertheless passed almost entirely out of the memory of the Church of the third and following centuries. To this is to be added the fact that Melito was a chiliast; and the teachings of the Montanists brought such disrepute upon chiliasm that the Fathers of the third and following centuries did not show much fondness for those who held or had held these views. Very few notices of Melito’s works are found among the Fathers, and none of those works is to-day extant. Eusebius is the first to give us an idea of the number and variety of his writings, and he does little more than mention the titles, a fact to be explained only by his lack of sympathy with Melito’s views.

The time at which Melito lived is indicated with sufficient exactness by the fact that he wrote his Apology during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, but after the death of his brother Lucius, i.e. after 169 (see below, note at); and that when Polycrates wrote his epistle to Victor of Rome, he had been dead already some years. It is possible (as held by Piper, Otto, and others) that his Apology was his last work, for Eusebius mentions it last in his list. At the same time, it is quite as possible that Eusebius enumerates Melito’s works simply in the order in which he found them arranged in the library of Caesarea, where he had perhaps seen them. Of the dates of his episcopacy, and of his predecessors and successors in the see of Sardis, we know nothing.

In addition to the works mentioned in this chapter by Eusebius, who does not pretend to give a full list, we find in Anastasius Sinaita’s Hodegos seu dux viae c. aceph. fragments from two other works entitled eij to paqoj and peri sarkwdewj xristou (the latter directed against Marcion), which cannot be identified with any mentioned by Eusebius (see Harnack, I. 1, p. 254). The Codex Nitriacus Musei Britannici 12,156 contains four fragments ascribed to Melito, of which the first belongs undoubtedly to his genuine work peri yuxhj kai swmatoj, which is mentioned in this chapter by Eusebius. The second purports to be taken from a work, peri staurou, of which we hear nowhere else, and which may or may not have been by Melito. The third fragment bears the title Melitonis episcopi de fide, and might be looked upon as an extract from the work peri pistewj, mentioned by Eusebius (as Otto regards it); but the same fragment is four times ascribed to Irenaeus by other early authorities, and an analysis of these authorities shows that the tradition in favor of Irenaeus is stronger than that in favor of Melito, and so Harnack mentions a work, peri pistewj, which is ascribed by Maximus Confessor to Irenæus, and from which the quotation may have been taken (see Harnack, ibid. p. 266 ff.). The fourth fragment was taken in all probability from Melito’s work, peri paqtouj, mentioned by Anastasius. An Apology in Syriac, bearing the name of Melito, is extant in another of the Nitrian mss. in the British Museum (No. 14,658), and has been published with an English translation by Cureton, in his Spic. Syr. (p. 41-51). It has been proved, however, that this Apology (which we have entire) was not written by Melito, but probably by an inhabitant of Syria, in the latter part of the second, or early part of the third century,-whether originally in the Greek or Syriac language is uncertain (see Harnack, p. 261 ff., and Smith and Wace, Vol. III. p. 895). In addition to the genuine writings, there must be mentioned also some spurious works which are still extant. Two Latin works of the early Middle Ages, entitled de transitu Mariae and de passione S. Joannis Evangelistae, and also a Catena of the latter Middle Ages on the Apocalypse, and a Clavis Scripturae of the Carlovingian period (see below, note 18), bear in some mss. the name of Melito. This fact shows that Melito’s name was not entirely forgotten in the Occidental Church of the Middle Ages, though little exact knowledge of him seems to have existed.

On Melito and his writings, see Piper’s article in the Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1838, p. 54-154; Salmon’s article in Smith and Wace, and especially Harnack’s Texte und Unters. I. 1, p. 240-278. The extant fragments of Melito’s writings are given in Routh’s Rel. Sac. I. 111-153, and in Otto’s Corp. Apol. IX. 374-478, and an English translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VIII. p. 750-762.

²⁰⁴The following list of Melito’s works is at many points very uncertain, owing to the various readings of the mss. and versions. We have as authorities for the text, the Greek mss. of Eusebius, the History of Nicephorus, the translation of Rufinus, chap. 24 of Jerome’s de vir. ill., and the Syriac version of this passage of Eusebius' History, which has been printed by Cureton, in his Spic. Syr. p. 56 ff.

²⁰⁵The quotation from this work given by Eusebius in §7, perhaps enables us to fix approximately the date at which it was written. Rufinus reads Sergius Paulus, instead of Servilius Paulus, which is found in all the Greek mss. Sergius Paulus is known to have had his second consulship in 168, and it is inferred by Wad-dington that he was proconsul about 164 to 166 (see Fastes des provinces Asiatiques, chap. 2, §148). No Servilius Paulus is known in connection with the province of Asia, and hence it seems probable that Rufinus is correct; and if so, the work on the Passover was written early in the sixties. The fragment which Eusebius gives in this chapter is the only part of his work that is extant. It was undoubtedly in favor of the Quartodeciman practice, for Polycrates, who was a decided Quartodeciman, cites Melito in support of his position.

²⁰⁶The exact reading at this point is disputed. I read, with a number of mss. to peri politeiaj kai profhtwn, making but one work, On the Conduct of Life and the Prophets. Many mss. followed by Valesius, Heinichen, and Burton, read ta instead of to, thus making either two works(one On the Conduct of Life, and the other On the Prophets), or one work containing more than one book. Rufinus translates de optima conversatione liber unus, sed et de prophetis, and the Syriac repeats the preposition, as if it read kai peri politeiaj kai peri profhtwn. It is not quite certain whether Rufinus and the Syriac thought of two works in translating thus, or of only one. Jerome translates, de vita prophetarum librum unum, and in accordance with this translation Otto proposes to read twn profhtwn instead of kai profhtwn. But this is supported by no ms. authority, and cannot be accepted.

²⁰⁹Valesius, Otto, Heinichen, and other editors, following the majority of the mss., read peri fusewj anqrwpou, On the Nature of Man. Four important mss., however, read peri pistewj anqrwpou, and this reading is confirmed both by Rufinus and by the Syriac; whether by Jerome also, as claimed by Harnack, is uncertain, for he omits both this work and the one On the Obedience of Faith, given just below, and mentions a de fide librum unum, which does not occur in Eusebius’ list, and which may have arisen through mistake from either of the titles given by Eusebius, or, as seems more probable, may have been derived from the title of the work mentioned below, On the Creation and Generation of Christ, as remarked in note 15. If this supposition be correct, Jerome omits all reference to this work peri pistewj anqrwpou. The text of Jerome is unfortunately very corrupt at this point. In the present passage pistewj is better supported by tradition than fusewj, and at the same time is the more difficult reading, and hence I have adopted it as more probably representing the original.

²¹¹All the Greek mss. combine these two titles into one, reading o peri upakohj pistewj aisqhthriwn: “On the subjection (or obedience) of the senses to faith.” This reading is adopted by Valesius, Heinichen, Otto, and others; but Nicephorus reads o peri upakohj pistewj, kai o peri aisqhthriwn, and Rufinus translates, de obedientia fidei, de sensibus, both of them making two works, as I have done in the text. Jerome leaves the first part untranstated, and reads only de sensibus, while the Syriac reproduces only the words o peri upakohj (or akohj) pistewj, omitting the second clause. Christophorsonus, Stroth, Zimmermann, Burton, and Harnack consequently read o peri upakohj pistewj, o peri aisqhthriwn, concluding that the words o peri after pistewj have fallen out of the Greek text. I have adopted this reading in my translation.

²¹²A serious difficulty arises in connection with this title from the fact that most of the Greek mss. read o peri yuxhj kai swmatoj h nooj, while the Syriac, Rufinus, and Jerome omit the h nooj entirely. Nicephorus and two of the Greek mss. meanwhile read hn en oij, which is evidently simply a corruption of h nooj, so that the Greek mss. are unanimous for this reading. Otto, Crusè, and Salmon read kai nooj, but there is no authority for kai instead of h, and the change cannot be admitted. The explanation which Otto gives (p. 376) of the change of h to kai will not hold, as Harnack shows on p. 247, note 346. It seems to me certain that the words h nooj did not stand in the original, but that the word nooj, (either alone or preceded by h or kai) was written upon the margin by some scribe perhaps as an alternative to yuxhj, perhaps as an addition in the interest of trichotomy, and was later inserted in the text after yuxhj and swmatoj, under the impression that it was an alternative title of the book. My reasons for this opinion are the agreement of the versions in the omission of nooj, the impossibility of explaining the h before nooj in the original text, the fact that in the Greek mss., in Rufinus, and in the Syriac, the words kai peri yuxhj kai swmatoj are repeated further down in the list,-a repetition which Harnack thinks was made inadvertently by Eusebius himself, and which in omitting nooj confirms the omission of it in the present case,-and finally, a fact which seems to me decisive, but which has apparently hitherto escaped notice, that the nooj, follows instead of precedes the swmatoj, and thus breaks the logical order, which would certainly have been preserved in the title of a book.

²¹⁴Apolinarius (according to chap. 27) also wrote a work On Truth, and the place which it holds in that list, between an apologetical work addressed to the Greeks and one addressed to the Jews, makes it probable that it too bore an apologetic character, being perhaps devoted to showing that Christianity is pre-eminently the truth. Melitos work on the same subject very likely bore a similar character, as suggested by Salmon.

²¹⁵Six mss., with Nicephorus, read ktisewj, “creation,” but five mss., with the Syriac and Rufinus, and possibly Jerome, read pistewj. The latter reading therefore has the strongest external testimony in its favor, but must be rejected (with Stroth, Otto, Heinichen, Harnack, etc.) as evidently a dogmatic correction of the fourth century, when there was an objection to the use of the word ktisij in connection with Christ. Rufinus divides the one work On the Creation and Generation of Christ into two,-On Faith and On the Generation of Christ, and his prophecy, connecting the second with the next-mentioned work. Jerome omits the first clause entirely at this point, and translates simply de generatione Christi librum unum. The de fide, however, which he inserts earlier in his list, where there is no corresponding word in the Greek, may be the title which he omits here (see above, note 9), displaced, as the title de sensibus is also displaced. If this be true, he becomes with Rufinus and the Syriac a witness to the reading pistewj instead of ktisewj, and like Rufinus divides the one work of Ensebius into two.

²¹⁶All the Greek mss. read kai logoj autou peri profhteiaj, which can rightly mean only “his work on Prophecy"; but Jerome translates de prophetia sua librum unum, and Rufinus de prophetia ejus, while the Syriac reads as if there stood in the Greek peri logou tnj profhteiaj autou. All three therefore connect the autou with the profhteiaj instead of with the logoj, which of course is much more natural, since the autou with the logoj seems quite unnecessary at this point. The translation of the Syriac, Rufinus, and Jerome, however, would require peri profhteiaj autou or peri thj autou profhteiaj, and there is no sign that the autou originally stood in such connection with the profhteiaj. We must, therefore, reject the rendering of these three versions as incorrect.

²¹⁷peri filoceniaj. After this title a few of the mss., with Rufinus and the Syriac, add the words kai peri yuxhj kai swmatoj, a repetition of a title already given (see above, note 12).

²¹⁸h kleij; Jerome, et alium librum qui Clavis inscribitur. The word is omitted in the Syriac version. The nature of this work we have no means of determining. It is possible that it was a key to the interpretation of the Scriptures, designed to guide the reader in the study especially of the figures of the prophecies (cr. Otto, p. 401) and of the Apocalypse. Piper is right, however, in saying that it cannot have been intended to supply the allegorical meaning of Scripture words, like the extant Latin Clavis of Pseudo-Melito, mentioned just below; for Melito, who like Tertullian taught the corporeality of God, must have been very literal-not allegorical-in his interpretation of Scripture. A Latin work bearing the title Melitonis Clavis Sanctae Scripturae was mentioned by Labbe in. 1653 as contained in the library of Clermont College, and after years of search was recovered and published by Pitra in 1855 in his Spicileg. Solesm. Vols. II. and III. He regarded the work as a translation, though with interpolations, of the genuine kleij of Melito, but this hypothesis has been completely disproved (see the article by Steitz in the Studien und Kritiken, 1857, p. 184 sqq.), and the work has been shown to be nothing more than a mediæval dictionary of allegorical interpolations of Scripture, compiled from the Latin Fathers. There is, therefore, no trace extant of Melito’s Key.

²¹⁹All the Greek mss. read kai ta peri tou diabolou, kai tnj apokaluyewj ‘Iwannou, making but one work, with two or more books, upon the general subject, The Devil and the Apocalypse of John. The Syriac apparently agrees with the Greek in this respect (see. Harnack, p. 248, note 350); but Jerome and Rufinus make two works, the latter reading de diabolo librum unum, de Apocalypsi Joannis librum unum. Origen, in Psalm. III. (ed. Lommatzsch, XI. p. 411), says that Melito treated Absalom as a type of the devil warring against the kingdom of Christ. It has been conjectured that the reference may be to this work of Melito’s, and that reference is an argument for the supposition that Melito treated the devil and the Apocalypse in one work (cf. Harnack, p. 248, and Smith and Wace, p. 898).

²²⁰o peri enswmatou qeou. Jerome does not translate this phrase, but simply gives the Greek. Rufinus renders de cleo corpore induto, thus understanding it to refer to the incarnation of God, and the Syriac agrees with this rendering. But as Harnack rightly remarks, we should expect, if this were the author’s meaning, the words peri enswmatwewj feou, or rather logou. Moreover, Origen (Selecta in Gen. I. 26; Lommatzsch, VIII. p. 49) enumerates Melito among those who taught the corporeality of God, and says that he had written a work peri tou enswmaton einai ton qeon. It is possible, of course, that he may not have seen Melito’s work, and that he may have misunderstood its title and have mistaken a work on the incarnation for one on the corporeality of God; but this is not at all likely. Either he had read the book, and knew it to be upon the subject he states, or else he knew from other sources that Melito believed in the corporeality of God, and hence had no doubt that this work was upon that subject. There is no reason in any case for doubting the accuracy of Origen’s statement, and for hesitating to conclude that the work mentioned by Eusebius was upon the corporeality of God. The close relationship existing between Melito and Tertullian has already been referred to, and this fact furnishes confirmation for the belief that Melito held God to be corporeal, for we know Tertullian’s views on that subject. Gennadius (de eccles. dogmat. chap. 4) classes Melito and Tertullian together, as both teaching a corporeality in the Godhead. What was the source of his statement, and how much dependence is to be put upon it, we cannot say, but it is at least a corroboration of the conclusion already reached. We conclude then that Rufinus and the Syriac were mistaken in their rendering, and that this work discussed the corporeality, not the incarnation, of God.

²²¹epi pasi kai to proj ‘Antwninon biblision. biblision (libellus) was the technical name for a petition addressed to the emperor, and does not imply that the work was a brief one, as Piper supposes. The Apology is mentioned also in chap. 13, above, and at the beginning of this chapter. Jerome puts it first in his list, with the words: Melito Asianus, Sardensis episcopus, librum imperatori M. Antonini Vero, qui Frontonis oratoris discipulus fuit, pro christiano dogmate dedit. This Apology is no longer extant, and we have only the fragments which Eusebius gives in this chapter. As remarked in note 1, above, the extant Syriac Apology is not a work of Melito’s. The Apology is mentioned in Jerome’s version of the Chron., and is assigned to the tenth year of Marcus Aurelius, 120 a.d. The notice is omitted in the Armenian, which, however, assigns to the eleventh year of Marcus Aurelius the Apology of Apolinarius, which is conuected with that of Melito in the Ch. Hist. Moreover, a notice of the Apology is given by Syncellus in connection with the tenth year of Marcus Aurelius, and also by the Chron. Pasch.; so that it is not improbable that Eusebius himself mentioned it in his Chron., and that its omission in the Armenian is a mistake (as Harnack thinks likely). But though the notice may thus have been made by Eusebius himself, we are nevertheless not at liberty to accept the date given as conclusive. We learn from the quotations given by Eusebius that the work was addressed to the emperor after the death of Lucius Verus, i.e. after the year 169. Whether before or after the association of Cornmodus with his father in the imperial power, which took place in 176, is uncertain; but I am inclined to think that the words quoted in §7, below, point to a prospective rather than to a present association of Cornmodus in the empire, and that therefore the work was written between 169 and 176. It must be admitted, however, that we can say with certainty only that the work was written between 169 and 180. Some would put the work at the beginning of those persecutions which raged in 177, and there is much to be said for this. But the dates of the local and minor persecutions, which were so frequent during this period, are so uncertain that little can be based upon the fact that we know of persecutions in certain parts of the empire in 177. Piper, Otto, and others conclude from the fact that the Apology is mentioned last by Eusebius that it was Melito’s latest work; but that, though not at all unlikely, does not necessarily follow (see above, note 1).

²²²A Sagaris, bishop and martyr, and probably the same man, is mentioned by Polycrates in his epistle to Victor (Euseb. V. 24) as buried in Laodicea. This is all we know of him. The date of his martyrdom, and of the composition of the work On the Passover, depends upon the date of the proconsulship of Servilius (or Sergius) Paulus (see above, note 5). The words empesontoj kata kairon have unnecessarily caused Salmon considerable trouble. The words kata kairon mean no more than “properly, regularly, according to appointment or rule,” and do not render ekeinaij taij hmeraij superfluous, as he thinks. The clause kai egrafh tauta ("and these were written") expresses result,-it was in consequence of the passover strife that Melito wrote this work.

²²³This work of Clement’s, On the Passover, which he says he wrote on occasion of Melito’s work, was clearly written in reply to and therefore against the work of Melito, not as a supplement to it, as Hefele supposes (Conciliengesch. I. 299). The work of Clement (which is mentioned by Eusebius, VI. 13, in his list of Clement’s writings) is no longer extant, but some brief fragments of it have been preserved (see Bk. VI. chap. 13, note 8).

²²⁴This statement of Melito’s is a very remarkable one. See chap. 8, note 14.

²²⁵The resemblance between this extract from Melito’s Apology and the fifth chapter of Tertullian’s Apology is close enough to tie striking, and too close to be accidental. Tertullian’s chapter is quite different from this, so far as its arrangement and language are concerned, but the same thought underlies both: That the emperors in general have protected Christianity; only Nero and Domitian, the most wicked of them, have persecuted it; and that Christianity has been a blessing to the reigns of all the better emperors. We cannot doubt that Tertullian was acquainted with Melito’s Apology, as well as with others of his works.

²²⁷The reference here seems to be to the common belief that the Christians were responsible for all the evils which at any time happened, such as earthquakes, floods, famines, etc.

²²⁸af wn kai to thj sukofantiaj alogw sunhqeia peri touj toioutouj ruhnai sumbebhke yeudoj. The sentence is a difficult one and has been interpreted in various ways, but the translation given in the text seems to me best to express the writer’s meaning.

²³⁰This epistle to Fundanus is given in chap. 9, above. Upon its genuineness, see chap. 8, note 14.

²³¹On these epistles of Antoninus Pius, see chap. 13, note 9. These ordinances to the Larisseans, Thessalonians, Athenians, and all the Greeks, are no longer extant. What their character must have been is explained in the note just referred to.

²³³en dh taij grafeisaij autw eklogaij. Jerome speaks of this work as Eklogwn, libros sex. There are no fragments of it extant except the single one from the preface given here by Eusebius. The nature of the work is clear from the words of Melito himself It was a collection of testimonies to Christ and to Christianity, drawn from the Old Testament law and prophets. It must, therefore, have resembled closely such works as Cyprian’s Testimonia, and the Testimonia of Pseudo-Gregory, and other anti-Jewish works, in which the appeal was made to the Old Testament-the common ground accepted by both parties-for proof of the truth of Christianity. Although the Eclogae of Melito were not anti-Jewish in their design, their character leads us to classify them with the general class of anti-Jewish works whose distinguishing mark is the use of Old Testament prophecy in defense of Christianity (cf. the writer’s article on Christian Polemics against the Jews, in the Pres. Review, July, 1888, and also the writer’s Dialogue between a Christian and a Jew, entitled ‘Antibolh Papisou kai filwnoj, New York, 1889).

²³⁵Some mss., with Rufinus, place Leviticus before Numbers, but the best mss., followed by Heinichen, Burton, and others, give the opposite order.

²³⁹‘Esdraj: the Greek form of the Hebrew name )rz;Melito refers here to the canonical Book of Ezra, which, among the Jews, commonly included our Ezra and Nehemiah (see Bk. III. chap. 10, note 1).

²⁴⁰The first extant notice of Apolinarius is that of Serapion, bishop of Antioch from about 192 to 209 (see Harnack, Zeit des Ignatius, p. 46), in the epistle quoted by Eusebius in V. 19. We learn from this notice that Apolinarius was already dead when Serapion wrote (he calls him “most blessed bishop"; makariwtatoj), and that he had been a skillful opponent of Montanism. His name is not mentioned again, so far as we know, by any Father of the second or third century. Jerome (de vir. ill. 26) simply repeats the account of Eusebius, but in his Epist. ad Magnum, c. 4 (Migne, I. 607), he enumerates Apolinarius among those Christian writers who were acquainted with heathen literature, and made use of it in the refutation of heresies. Photius (Cod. 14) praises his literary style in high terms. Socrates (H. E. III. 7) names Apolinarius with Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Serapion as holding that the incarnate Christ had a human soul (emyuxon ton enanmqrwphsanta). Jerome, in his de vir. ill. chap. 18, mentions an Apolinarius in connection with Irenaeus as a chiliast. But in his Comment. in Ezech. Bk. XI. chap. 36, he speaks of Irenaeus as the first, and Apolinarius as the last, of the Greek Millenarians, which shows that some other Apolinarius is meant in that place, and therefore without doubt in the former passage also; and in another place (Prooem. in lib. XVIII. Comm. in Esaiam) he says that Apolinarius replied to Dionysius of Alexandria on the subject of the Millenium, and we are therefore led to conclude that Apolinarius, bishop of Laodicea (of the fourth century), is meant (see Routh, Rel. Sac. I. 174). Of the bishops of Hierapolis, besides Apolinarius, we know only Papias and Abircius Marcellus (of whom we have a Martyrdom, belonging to the second century; see Pitra, Spic. Solesm. III. 533), who, if he be identical with the Abircius Marcellus of Eusebius, Bk. V. chap. 16 (as Harneck conjectures) must have been bishop after, not before Apelinerius (see note 6 on Bk. V. chap. 16). It is impossible to determine the exact date of Apolinarins’ episcopate, or of his death. As we see from Serapion’s notice of him, he must have been dead at least before 202. And if Abircius Marcellus was bishop after him, and also bishop in the second century, Apolinarius must have died some years before the year see, and thus about the same time as Melito. The fact that he is mentioned so commonly in connection with Melito, sometimes before and sometimes after him, confirms this conclusion. The Chron. mentions him as flourishing in the tenth (Syncellus and Jerome), or the eleventh (Armenian) year of Marcus Aurelius. His Apology was addressed, as we learn from Eusebius, to Marcus Anrelius; and the fact that only the one emperor is mentioned may perhaps be taken (as some have taken it) as a sign that it was written while Marcus Aurelius was sole emperor (i.e. between 169 and 176). In Bk. V. chap. 5, Eusebius speaks of the story of the thundering legion as recorded by Apolinarius, and it has been thought (e.g. by Salmon, in the Dict. of Christ. Biog.) that this circumstance was recorded in the Apology, which cannot then have been written before the year 174. Harnack, however, remarks that this venturesome report can hardly have stood in a work addressed to the emperor himself. But that seems to assume that the story was not fully believed by Apolinarius, which can hardly have been the case. The truth is, the matter cannot be decided; and no more exact date can be given for the Apology. Eusebius, in the present chapter, informs us that he has seen four works by Apolinarius, but says that there were many others extant in his day. In addition to the ones mentioned by Eusebius, we know of a work of his, On the Passover (peri tou pasxa), which is mentioned by the Chron. Paschale, and two brief fragments of which are preserved by it. These fragments have caused a discussion as to whether Apolinarius was a Quartodeciman or not. The language of the first fragment would seem to show clearly that he was opposed to the Quartodecimans, and this explains the fact that he is never cited by the later Quartodecimans as a witness for their opinions. The tone of the work, however, as gathered from the fragments, shows that it must have been written before the controversy had assumed the bitter tone which it took when Victor became bishop of Rome; i.e. it was written, probably, in the seventies (see, also, Bk. V. chap. 23, note 1). Photius (Cod. 14) mentions three apologetic works by Apolinarius known to him: proj Ellhnaj, peri eusebeiaj, and peri alhqeiaj. The first and last are mentioned by Eusebius, but the second is a work otherwise unknown to us. There is no reason to suppose, as some have done, that the peri eusebeiaj does not designate a separate work (cf. e.g., Donaldson, Hist. of Christ. Lit. and Doctrine, III. 243), for Eusebius expressly says that he mentions only a part of Apolinarius’ writings. Theodoret (Haer. Fab. I. 21) mentions Apolinarius, together with Musanus and Clement, as having written against the Severians (see chap. 29, below). But, as Harnack justly remarks (p. 235), the most we can conclude from this is that Apolmarius in his Anti-Montanistic work, bad mentioned the Severians with disapproval. Five mss., of Eusebius, and the Church Hist. of Nicephorus, mention just after the work On Truth, a work Against the Jews, in two books (kai proj ‘Ioudaiouj prwton kai deuteron). The words are found in manyof our editions, but are omitted by the majority of the best Greek mss., and also by Rufinus and Jerome, and therefore must be regarded as an interpolation; and so they are viewed by Heinichen, Laemmer, Otto, Harnack, and others. Harnack suggests that they were inserted under the influence of Bk. V. chap. 17, §5, where the works of Miltiades are given. We thus have knowledge of six, and only six, distinct works of Apolinarius, though, since no writer has pretended to give a complete list, it is quite probable that he wrote many others.

²⁴¹On the approximate date of this Apology, see the previous note. No fragments of the work are now extant, unless the account of the thundering legion mentioned by Eusebius in Bk. V. chap. 5 belong to it (see the previous note). Jerome speaks of the work as an insigne volumen pro fide Christianorum, and in chap. 26, §1, Eusebius speaks of it as logoj uper thj mistewj. This has given rise to the idea that the peri eusebeiaj mentioned by Photius may be identical with this Apology (see the previous note). But such an important work would certainly not have been mentioned with such an ambiguous title by Photius. We may conclude, in fact, that Photius had not seen the Apology. The Chron. Paschale mentions the Apology in connection with those of “Melito and many others,” as addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

²⁴²No fragments of this work are known to us. Nicephorus (H. E. IV. 11) says that it was in the form of a dialogue, and it is quite possible that he speaks in this case from personal knowledge, for the work was still extant in the time of Photius, who mentions it in Cod. 14 (see Harnack, p. 236).

²⁴³No fragments of this work are extant, and its nature is unknown to us. It may have resembled the work of Melito upon the same subject (see the previous chapter). The work is mentioned by Photius as one of three, which he had himself seen.

²⁴⁴Eusebius states here that the works against the Montanists were written later than the other works mentioned. Where he got this information we do not know; it is possible, as Harnack suggests, that he saw from the writings themselves that Marcus Aurelius was no longer alive when they were composed. Eusebius speaks very highly of these Anti-Montanistic works, and in Bk. V. chap. 16, §1, he speaks of Apolinarius as a “powerful weapon and antagonist” of the Montanists. And yet it is a remarkable fact that he does not take his account of the Montanists from the works of Apolinarius, but from later writings. This fact can be explained only as Harnack explains it by supposing that Apolinarius was not decided and clear enough in his opposition to the sect. The writer from whom Eusebius quotes is certainly strong enough in his denunciations to suit Eusebius or any one else. Eusebius’ statement, that the Montanistic movement was only beginning at the time Apolinarius wrote against it (i.e. according to him between 175 and 180), is far from the truth (see on this subject, Bk. V. chap. 16, note 12). How many of these works Apolinarius wrote, and whether they were books, or merely letters, we do not know. Eusebius says simply kai a meta tauta sunegraye. Serapion (in Eusebius, Bk. V. chap. 19) calls them grammata, which Jerome (de vir. ill. chap. 41) translates litteras. These grammata are taken as “letters” by Valesius, Stroth, Danz, and Salmon; but Otto contends that the word grammata, in the usage of Eusebius (cf. Eusebius, V. 28. 4), properly means “writings” or “books” (scripta or libri), not “letters,” and so the word is translated by Closs. The word itself is not absolutely decisive, but it is more natural to translate it “writings,” and the circumstances of the case seem to favor that rather than the rendering “letters.” I have therefore translated it thus in Bk. VI. chap. 19. On the life and writings of Apolinarius, see especially Salmon’s article in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. and Harnack’s Texte und Untersuch. I. 1, 232-239. The few extant fragments of his works are published by Routh (I. 151-174), and by Otto (IX. 479-495); English translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, VIII. 772.

²⁴⁶Of this Musanus, we know only what Eusebius tells us here, for Jerome (de vir. ill. 31) and Theodoret (Haer. Fab. I. 21) simply repeat the account of Eusebius. It is clear from Eusebius’ language, that he had not himself seen this work of Musanus; he had simply heard of it. Here, and in chap. 21, Eusebius assigns the activity of Musanus to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, making him a contemporary of Melito, Apolinarius, Irenaeus, &c. But in the Chron. he is put much later. The Armenian version, under the year of Abr. 2220 (the eleventh year of Septimius), has the entry Musanus noster scriptor cognoscebatur. Jerome, under the same year (2220 of Abr., but twelfth year of Severus) has Musanus nostrae filosofiae scriptor agnoscitur; while Syncellus, under the year of Abr. 2231 (fourth year of Caracalla) has Mousianoj ekklhsiastikoj suggrafeuj egnwrizeto. All of them, therefore, speak of Musanus (or Musianus) as a writer, but do not specify any of his works. The dates in the Chron. (whichever be taken as original) and in the History are not mutually exclusive; at the same time it is clear that Eusebius was not working upon the same information in the two cases. We have no means of testing the correctness of either statement.

²⁴⁸From his Oratio (chap. 42) we learn that Tatian was born in Assyria, and that he was early educated in Greek philosophy, from which we may conclude that he was of Greek parentage,-a conclusion confirmed by the general tone of the Oratio (cf. Harnack, Ueberlieferung der Griech. Apol. p. 199 sq., who refutes Zahn’s opinion that Tartan was a.Syrian by race). We learn from his Oratio also that he was converted to Christianity in mature life (cf. chap. 29 sq.). From the passage quoted in the present chapter from Irenaeus, we learn that Tatian, after the death of Justin (whose disciple he was; see also chap. 16, above), fell into heresy, and the general fact is confirmed by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and others. Beyond these meager notices we have little information in regard to Tatian’s life. Rhodo (quoted in Bk. V. chap. 13, below) mentions him, and “confesses” that he was a pupil of Tatian’s in Rome, perhaps implying that this was after Tatian had left the Catholic Church (though inasmuch as the word “confesses” is Eusebius’, not Rhodo’s, we can hardly lay the stress that Harnack does upon its use in this connection). Epiphanius gives quite an account of Tatian in his Haer. XLVI. 1, but as usual he falls into grave errors (especially in his chronology). The only trustworthy information that can be gathered from him is that Tatian, after becoming a Christian, returned to Mesopotamia and taught for a while there (see Harnack, ibid. p. 208 sq.). We learn from his Oratio that he was already in middle life at the time when he wrote it, i.e. about 152 a.d. (see note 13, below), and as a conseqnence it is commonly assumed that he cannot have been born much later than 110 a.d. Eusebius in his Chron. (XII. year of Marcus Aurelius, 172 a.d.) says, Tatianus haeretics agnoscitur, a quo Encratitae. There is no reason to doubt that this represents with reasonable accuracy the date of Tatian’s break with the Catholic Church. We know at any rate that it did not take place until after Justin’s death (165 a.d.). In possession of these various facts in regard to Tation, his life has been constructed in various ways by historians, but Harnack seems to have come nearest to the truth in his account of him on p. 212 sq. He holds that he was converted about 150, but soon afterward left for the Orient, and while there wrote his Oratio ad Graecos; that afterward he returned to Rome and was an honored teacher in the Church for some time but finally becoming heretical, broke with the Church about the year 172. The arguments which Harnack urges over against Zahn (who maintains that he was but once in Rome, and that he became a heretic in the Orient and spent the remainder of his life there) seem fully to establish his main positions. Of the date, place, and circumstances of Tatian’s death, we know nothing.

Eusebius informs us in this chapter that Tation left “a great many writings,” but he mentions the titles of only two, the Address to the Greeks and the Diatessaron (see below, notes 11 and 13). He seems, however, in §6, to refer to another work on the Pauline Epistles,-a work of which we have no trace anywhere else, though we learn from Jerome’s preface to his Commentary on Titus thai Tatian rejected some of Paul’s epistles, as Marcion did, but unlike Marcion accepted the epistle to Titus. We know the titles of some other works written by Tatian. He himself, in his Oratio 15, mentions a work which he had written On Animals. The work is no longer extant, nor do we know anything about it. Rhodo (as we are told by Eusebius in Bk. V. chap. 13) mentioned a book of Problems which Tation had written. Of this, too, all traces have perished. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. III. 12) mentions an heretical work of Tatian’s, entitled peri tou kata ton swthra katartismou, On Perfection according to the Saviour, which has likewise perished. Clement (as also Origen) was evidently acquainted with still other heretical works, especially one on Genesis (see below, note 7), but he mentions the title only of the one referred to. Rufinus (H.E. VI. 11) says that Tatian composed a Chronicon, which we hear about from no other writer. Malalas calls Tatian a chronographer, but he is evidently thinking of the chronological passages in his Oratio, and in the absence of all trustworthy testimony we must reject Rufinus’ notice as a mistake. In his Oratio, chap. 40, Tatian speaks of a work Against those who have discoursed on Divine Things, in which he intends to show “what the learned among the Greeks have satd concerning our polity and the history of our laws and how many and what kind of men have written of these things.” Whether he ever wrote the work or not we do not know; we find no other notice of it. Upon Tatian, see especially Zahn’s Tatian’s Diatessaron and Harnack’s Ueberlieferung, &c., p. 196; also Donaldson’s Hist. of Christ. Lit. and Doct. II. p. 3 sqq., and J. M. Fuller’s article in the Dict. of Christ. Biog.

²⁵¹‘Egkrateij, a word meaning “temperate” or “continent.” These Encratites were heretics who abstained from flesh, from wine and from marriage, not temporarily but permanently, and because of a belief in the essential impurity of those things. They are mentioned also by Hippolytus (Phil. VIII. 13), who calls them egkratitai; by Clement of Alexandria (Paed. II. 2, Strom. I. 15, &c.), who calls them egkrathtai; by Epiphanius (Haer. 47), who agrees with Hippolytus in the form of the name, and by others. The Encratites whom Irenaeus describes seem to have constituted a distinct sect, anti-Jewish and Gnostic in its character. As described by Hippolytus they appear to have been mainly orthodox in doctrine but heretical in their manner of life, and we may perhaps gather the same thing from Clement’s references to them. It is evident, therefore, that Irenaeus and the others are not referring to the same men. So Theodoret, Haer. Fab. I. 21, speaks of the Severian Encratites; but the Severians, as we learn from this chapter of Eusebius and from Epiphanius (Haer. XLV.), were Ebionitic and anti-Pauline in their tendencies-the exact opposites, therefore, of the Encratites referred to by Irenaeus. That there was a distinct sect of Encratites of the character described by Irenaeus cannot be denied, but we must certainly conclude that the word was used very commonly in a wider sense to denote men of various schools who taught excessive and heretical abstinence. Of course the later writers may have supposed that they all belonged to one compact sect, but it is certain that they did not. As to the particular sect which Irenaeus describes, the statement made by Eusebius at the close of the preceding chapter is incorrect, if we are to accept Irenaeus’ account. For the passage quoted in this chapter states that they sprung from Marcion and Saturninus, evidently implying that they were not founded by Tatian, but that he found them already in existence when he became heretical. It is not surprising, however that his name should become connected with them as their founder-for he was the best-known man among them. That the Encratites as such (whether a single sect or a general tendency) should be opposed by the Fathers, even by those of ascetic tendencies, was natural. It was not always easy to distinguish between orthodox and heretical asceticism, and yet there was felt to be a difference. The fundamental distinction was held by the Church-whenever it came to self-consciousness on the subject-to lie in the fact that the heretics pronounced the things from which they abstained essentially evil in themselves, thus holding a radical dualism, while the orthodox abstained only as a matter of discipline. The distinction, it is true, was not always preserved, but it was this essentially dualistic principle of the Encratites which the early Fathers combated; it is noticeable, however, that they do not expend as much vigor in combating it as in refuting errors in doctrine. In fact, they seem themselves to have been somewhat in doubt as to the proper attitude to take toward these extreme ascetics.

²⁵²On Saturninus and on Marcion, see chap. 7, note 6, and 11, note 15. On their asceticism, see especially Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I. 24.

²⁵⁴Cf. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. III. 23, where this opinion of Tatian’s is refuted at considerable length. The opinion seems a little peculiar, but was a not unnatural consequence of Tatian’s strong dualism, and of his doctrine of a conditional immortality for those who have been reunited with the Holy Spirit who took his departure at the time of the fall (cf. especially his Oratio, chap. 15). That Adam, who, by his fall, brought about this separation, which has been of such direful consequence to the race, should be saved, was naturally to Tation a very repugnant thought. He seems, moreover, to have based his opinion, as Donaldson remarks, npon exegetical grounds interpreting the passage in regard to Adam (1 Cor. xv. 22) as meaning that Adam is and remains the principle of death, and as such, of course, cannot himself enjoy life (see Irenaeus, ibid.). This is quite in accord with the distinction between the psychical and physical man which he draws in his Oratio. It is quite possible that he was moved in part also by the same motive which led Marcion to deny the salvation of Abraham and the other patriarchs (see Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I. 27 and IV. 8), namely, the opposition between the God of the Old Testament and the Christ of the New Testament, which led him to assert that those who depended on the former were lost. We learn from Clement (Strom. III. 12) and from Origen (de Orat. chap. 24) that among Tatian’s heretical works was one in which he discussed the early chapters of Genesis and perhaps it was in this work that he developed his peculiar views’ in regard to Adam.

²⁵⁵On Valentinus, see chap. 11, note 1. That Tatian was Gnostic in many of his tendencies is plain enough not only from these words of Irenaeus, but also from the notices of him in other writers (cf. especially Hippolytus, Phil. VIII. 9). To what extent he carried his Gnosticism, however, and exactly in what it consisted, we cannot tell. He can hardly have been a pronounced follower of Valentinus and a zealous defender of the doctrine of Aeons, or we should find him connected more prominently with that school. He was, in fact, a decided eclectic, and a follower of no one school, and doubtless this subject, like many others, occupied but a subordinate place ia his speculations.

²⁵⁶That the Severians, whoever they were, were Encratites in the wide sense, that is, strict abstainers from flesh, wine, and marriage, cannot be denied (compare with this description of Eusebius that of Epiphanius in Haer. XLV., also Theodoret’s Haer. Fab. I. 21, who says that Apolinarius wrote against the Severinn Encratites,-a sign that the Severians and the Encratites were in some way connected in tradition even though Theodoret’s statement may be unreliable). But that they were connected with Tattan and the Encratitic sect to which he belonged, as Eusebius states, is quite out of the question. Tatian was a decided Paulinist (almost as much so as Marcion himself). He cannot, therefore, have had anything to do with this Ebionitic, anti-Pauline sect, known as the Severtans. Whether there was ever such a person as Severus, or whether the name arose later to explain the name of the sect (possibly taken from the Latin severus, “severe,” as Salmon suggests), as the name Ebion was invented to explain the term Ebionites, we do not know. We are ignorant also of the source from which Eusebius took his description of the Severians, as we do not find them mentioned in anyof the earlier anti-heretical works. Ensebius must have heard, as Epiphanius did, that they were extreme ascetics, and this must have led him, in the absence of specific information as to their exact position, to join them with Tartan and the Encratites,-a connection which can be justified on no other ground.

²⁵⁷ouk oid opwj. Eusebius clearly means to imply in these words that he was not acquainted with the Diatessaron. Lightfoot, it is true, endeavors to show that these words may mean simply disapproval of the work, and not ignorance in regard to it. But his interpretation is an unnatural one, and has been accepted by few scholars.

²⁵⁸to dia tessarwn. Eusebius is the first one to mention this Diatessaron, and he had evidently not seen it himself. After him it is not referred to again until the time of Epiphanius, who in his Haer. XLVI. 1 incorrectly identifies it with the Gospel according to the Hebrews, evidently knowing it only by hearsay. Theodoret (Haer. Fab. I. 20) informs us that he found a great many copies of it in circulation in his diocese, and that, finding that it omitted the account of our Lord’s birth, he replaced it by the four Gospels, fearing the mischief which must result from the use of such a mutilated Gospel. In the Doctrine of Addai (ed. Syr. and Engl. by G. Phillips, 1876), which belongs to the third century, a Diatessaron is mentioned which is without doubt to be identified with the one under consideration (see Zahn I. p. 90 sq.). Meanwhile we learn from the preface to Dionysius bar Salibi’s Commentary on Mark (see Assemani, Bibl. Or. I. 57), that Ephraem wrote a commentary upon the Diatessaron of Tatian (Tatianus Justini Philosophic ac Martyris Discipulus, ex quator Evangeliis unumdigessit, quod Diatessaron nuncupavil. Hunc librum Sanctus Ephraem commentariis illustravit). Ephraem’s commentary still exists in an Armenian version (published at Venice in 1836, and in Latin in 1876 by Moesinger). There exists also a Latin Harmony of the Gospels, which is without doubt a substantial reproduction of Tatian’s Diatessaron, and which was known to Victor of Capua (of the sixth century). From these sources Zahn has attempted to reconstruct the text of the Diatessaron, and prints the reconstructed text, with a critical commentary, in his Tatian’s Diatessaron. Zahn maintains that the original work was written in Syriac, and he is followed by Lightfoot, Hilgenfeld, Fuller, and others; but Harnack has given very strong reasons for supposing that it was composed by Tatinn in Greek, and that the Syriac which Ephraem used was a translation of that original, not the original itself. Both Zahn and Harnack agree, as do most other scholars, that the work was written before Tatinn became a heretic, and with no heretical intent. Inasmuch as he later became a heretic, however, his work was looked upon with suspicion, and of course in later days, when so much stress was laid (as e.g. by Irenaeus) upon the fourfold Gospel, Christians would be naturally distrustful of a single Gospel proposed as a substitute for them. It is not surprising, therefore, that the work failed to find acceptance in the Church at large. For further particulars, see especially Zahn’s monograph, which is the most complete and exhaustive discussion of the whole subject. See also Harnack’s Ueberlieferung der Griech. Apologeten, p. 213 ff., Fuller’s article referred to in note 1, the article by Lightfoot in the Contemporary Review for May, 1877, and those by Wace in the Expositor for 1881 and 1882.

²⁵⁹i.e. of Paul, who was quite commonly called simply o apostoloj. This seems to imply that Tartan wrote a work on Paul’s epistles (see note 1, above).

²⁶⁰logoj o proj Ellhnaj: Oratio ad Graecos. This work is still extant, and is one of the most interesting of the early apologies. The standpoint of the author is quite different from that of Justin, for he treats Greek philosophy with the greatest contempt, and finds nothing good in it. As remarked in note 1, above, the Oratio was probably written after Tattan had left Rome for the first time, but not long after his conversion. We may follow Harnack (p. 196) in fixing upon 152 to 153 as an approximate date. The work is printed with a Latin translation and commentary in Otto’s Corp. Apol. Vol. VI.

The best critical edition is that of Schwartz, in v. Gebhardt and Harnack’s Texte und Untersuchungen, IV. 1 (Leipzig, 1888), though it contains only the Greek text. An English translation is given in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II. p. 59-83.

²⁶¹Tatian devotes a number of chapters to this subject (XXXI., XXXV. XLI). Eusebius mentions him, with Clement, Africanus, Josephus, and Justus, in the preface to his Chron. (Schöne, II. p. 4), as a witness to the antiquity of Moses, and it is probable that Julius. Africanns drew from him in the composition of his chronological work (cf. Harnack, ibid. p. 224). Clement of Alexandria likewise made large Use of his chronological results (see especially his Strom. I. 21), and Origen refers to them in his Contra Cels. I. 16. It was largely on account of these chapters on the antiquity of Moses that Tatian’s Oratio was held in such high esteem, while his other works disappeared.

²⁶³Bardesanes or Bardaisan (Greek, Bardhsanhj), a distinguished Syrian scholar, poet, and theologian, who lived at the court of the king of Edessa, is commonly classed among the Gnostics, but, as Hort shows, without sufficient reason. Our reports in regard to him are very conflicting. Epiphanius and Barhebraeus relate that he was at first a distinguished Christian teacher, but afterward became corrupted by the doctrines of Valentinus. Eusebius on the other hand says that he was originally a Valentinian, but afterward left that sect and directed his attacks against it. Moses of Chorene gives a similar account. To Hippolytus he appeared as a member of the Eastern school of Valentinians, while to Ephraem the Syrian he seemed in general one of the most pernicious of heretics, who nevertheless pretended to be orthodox, veiling his errors in ambiguous language, and thus carrying away many of the faithful. According to Hort, who has given the subject very careful study, “there is no reason to suppose that Bardesanes rejected the ordinary faith of the Christians as founded on the Gospels and the writings of the apostles, except on isolated points. The more startling peculiarities of which we hear belong for the most part to an outer region of speculation, which it may easily have seemed possible to combine with Christianity, more especially with the undeveloped Christianity of Syria in the third century. The local color is everywhere prominent. In passing over to the new faith Bardaisan could not shake off the ancient glamour of the stars, or abjure the Semitic love of clothing thoughts in mythological forms.” This statement explains clearly enough the reputation for heresy which Bardesanes enjoyed in subsequent generations. There is no reason to think that he tanght a system of aeons like the Gnostics, but he does seem to have leaned toward docetism, and also to have denied the proper resurrection of the body. Ephraem accnses him of teaching Polytheism, in effect if not in words, but this charge seems to have arisen from a misunderstanding of his mythological forms; he apparently maintained always the supremacy of the one Christian God. There is nothing in his theology itself to imply Valentinian influence, but the traditions to that effect are too strong to be entirely set aside. It is not improbable that he may, as Eusebius says, have been a Valentinian for a time, and afterward, upon entering the orthodox church, have retained some of the views which he gained under their influence. This would explain the conflicting reports of his theology. It is not necessary to say more about his beliefs. Hort’s article in Smith and Wace’s Dict. of Christ. Biog. contains an excellent discussion of the subject, and the student is referred to that.

The followers of Bardesanes seem to have emphasized those points in which he differed with the Church at large, and thus to have departed further from catholic orthodoxy. Undoubtedly Ephraem (who is our most important authority for a knowledge of Bardesanes) knows him only through his followers, who were very numerous throughout the East in the fourth century, and hence passes a harsher judgment upon him than he might otherwise have done. Ephraem makes the uprooting of the “pernicious heresy” one of his foremost duties.

Eusebius in this chapter, followed by Jerome (de vir. ill. chap. 33), Epiphanius, Theodoret, and others, assigns the activity of Bardesanes to the reign of Marcus Aurelius (so also in the Chron.). But Hort says that according to the Chronicle of Edessa (Assemani, Bibl. Or. I. 389) he was born July 11, 155, and according to Barhebraeus (Chron. Eccl. ed. Abbeloos and Lamy, p. 49) he died in 223 at the age of sixty-eight, which confirms the date of his birth given by the Chronicle of Edessa. These dates are accepted as correct by Hilgenfeld and Hort, and the error committed by Eusebius and those who followed him is explained by their confusion of the later with the earlier Antonines, a confusion which was very common among the Fathers.

His writings, as stated by Eusebius, Epiphanins, Theodoret, and others, were very numerous, and were translated (at least many of them) into Greek. The dialogues against the Marcionists and other heretics are mentioned also by Theodoret (Haer. Fab. I. 22) and by Barhebraeus. Epiphanius (who apparently had some independent knowledge of the man and his followers) mentions (Haer. LVI.) an Apology “in which he resisted Apollonius, the companion of Antoninus, when urged to deny that hewas a Christian.” This was probably one of the many works which Eusebius says he wrote on occasion of the persecution which arose at the time.

The Dialogue on Fate is said by Eusebius, followed by Rufinus and Jerome, to have been addressed to Antoninus. Epiphanius says that in this work he “copiously refuted Avidas the astronomer,” and it is quite possible that Eusebius’ statement rests upon a confusion of the names Avidas and Antoninus, for it is difficult to conceive that the work can have been addressed to an emperor, and in any case it cannot have been addressed to Marcus Aurelms, whom Eusebius here means. This Dialogue on Fate is identified either wholly or in part with a work entitled Book of the Laws of Countries, which is still extant in the original Syriac, and has been published with an English translation by Cureton in his Spicileg. Syr. A fragment of this work is given in Eusebius' Praep. Evang. VI. 9-10, and, until the discovery of the Syriac text of the entire work, this was all that we had of it. This is undoubtedly the work referred to by Eusebius, Epiphanius, and other Fathers, but it is no less certain that it was not written by Bardesanes himself. As Hort remarks, “the natural impulse to confuse the author with the chief interlocutor in an anonymous dialogue will sufficiently explain the early ascription of the Dialogue to Bardaisan himself by the Greek Fathers.” It was undoubtedly written by one of Bardesanes’ disciples, probably soon after his death, and it is quite likely that it does not depart widely from the spirit of Bardesanes’ teaching. Upon Bardesanes, see, in addition to Hort’s article, the monograph of Merx, Bardesanes von Edessa (Halle, 1863), and that of Hilgenfeld, Bardesanes, der Letzte Gnostiker (Leipz. 1864).

²⁶⁶Hort conjectures that Caracalla, who spent the winter of 216 in Edessa, and threw the Prince Bar-Manu into captivity, may have allied himself with a party which was discontented with the rule of that prince, and which instituted a heathen reaction, and that this was the occasion of the persecution referred to here, in which Bardesanes proved his firmness in the faith as recorded by Epiphanius.

²⁶⁸It is undoubtedly quite true, as remarked in note 2, that Bardesanes, after leaving Valentianism, still retained views acquired under its influence, and that these colored all his subsequent thinking. This fact may have been manifest to Eusebius, who had evidently read many of Bardesanes’ works, and who speaks here as if from personal knowledge.

²Eusebius in his Chronicle gives the date of Eleutherus’ accession as the seventeenth year of Marcus Aurelius (177 a.d.), and puts his death into the reign of Pertinax (192), while in chap. 22 of the present book he places his death in the tenth year of Commodus (189). Most of our authorities agree in assigning fifteen years to his episcopate, and this may be accepted as undoubtedly correct, Most of them, moreover, agree with chap. 22 of this book, in assigning his death to the tenth year of Commodus, and this too may be accepted as accurate. But with these two data we are obliged to push his accession back into the year 174 (or 175), which is accepted by Lipsius (see his Chron. der röom. Bischöfe, p. 184 sq.). We must therefore suppose that he became bishop some two years before the outbreak of the persecution referred to just below, in the fourteenth or fifteenth year of Marcus Aurelius. In the Armenian version of the Chron. Eleutherus is called the thirteenth bishop of Rome (see above, Bk. IV. chap. 19, note 5), but this is a mistake, as pointed out in the note referred to. Eleutherus is mentioned in Bk. IV, chap. 11, in connection with Hegesippus, and also in Bk. IV. chap. 22, by Hegesippus himself. He is chiefly interesting because of his connection with Irenaeus and the Gallican martyrs (see chap. 4, below), and his relation to the Montanistic controversy (see chap. 3). Bede, in his Hist. Eccles., chap. 4, connects Eleutherus with the origin of British Christianity, but the tradition is quite groundless. One of the decretals and a spurious epistle are falsely ascribed to him.

³i.e., the seventeenth year of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, a.d. 177 (upon Eusebius’ confusion of Marcus Aurelius with Lucius Verus, see below, p. 390, note). In the Chron. the persecution at Lyons and Vienne is associated with the seventh year of Marcus Aurelius (167), and consequently some (e.g. Blondellus, Stroth, and Jachmann), have maintained that the notice in the present passage is incorrect, and Jachmann has attacked Eusebius very severely for the supposed error. The truth is, however, that the notice in the Chron. (in the Armenian, which represents the original form more closely than Jenner’s version does) is not placed opposite the seventh year of Marcus Aurelius (as the notices in the Chron. commonly are), but is placed after it, and grouped with the notice of Polycarp’s martyrdom, which occurred, not in 167, but in 155 or 156 (see above, Bk. IV. chap. 15, note 2). It would seem, as remarked by Lightfoot (Ignatius, I. p. 630), that Eusebius simply connected together the martyrdoms which he supposed occurred about this time, without intending to imply that they all took place in the same year. Similar groupings of kindred events which occurred at various times during the reign of an emperor are quite common in the Chron. (cf. the notices of martyrdoms under Trajan and of apologies and rescripts under Hadrian). Over against the distinct statement of the history, therefore, in the present instance, the notice in the Chron. is of no weight. Moreover, it is clear from the present passage that Eusebius had strong grounds for putting the persecution into the time of Eleutherus, and the letter sent by the confessors to Eleutherus (as recorded below in chap. 4) gives us also good reason for putting the persecution into the time of his episcopate. But Eleutherus cannot have become bishop before 174 (see Lipsius' Chron. der röm. ‘Bischöfe, p. 184 sq., and note 2, above). There is no reason, therefore, for doubting the date given here by Eusebius.

⁴All the mss. read marturwn, but I have followed Valesius (in his notes) and Heinichen in reading marturiwn, which is supported by the version of Rufinus (de singulorum martyriis), and which is the word used by Eusebius in all his other references to the work (Bk. IV. chap. 15 and Bk. V. chaps. 4 and 21), and is in fact the proper word to be employed after sunagwgh, “collection.” We speak correctly of a “collection of martyrdoms,” not of a “collection of martyrs,” and I cannot believe that Eusebius, in referring to a work of his own, used the wrong word in the present case. Upon the work itself, see the Prolegomena, p. 30, of this volume.

⁵tou kata qeon politeumatoj, with the majority of the mss. supported by Rufinus. Some mss., followed by Stroth, Burton, and Schwegler, read kaq= hmaj instead of kata qeon (see Heinichen’s note in loco). Christophorsonus translates divinam vivendi rationem, which is approved by Heinichen. But the contrast drawn seems to be rather between earthly kingdoms, or governments, and the kingdom, or government, of God; and I have, therefore, preferred to give politeuma its ordinary meaning, as is done by Valesius (divinae reipublicae), Stroth (Republik Gottes), and Closs (Staates Gottes).

⁶Lougdounoj kai Bienna, the ancient Lugdunum and Vienna, the modern Lyons and Vienne in southeastern France.

⁷marturwn. This word is used in this and the following chapters of all those that suffered in the persecution, whether they lost their lives or not, and therefore in a broader sense than our word “martyr.” In order, therefore, to avoid all ambiguity I have translated the word in every case “witness,” its original significance. Upon the use of the words martur and martuj in the early Church, see Bk. III. chap. 32, note 15.

⁸The fragments of this epistle, preserved by Eusebius in this and the next chapter, are printed with a commentary by Routh, in his Rel. Sacrae. I. p. 285 sq., and an English translation is given in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, VIII. p. 778 sq. There can be no doubt as to the early date and reliability of the epistle. It bears no traces of a later age, and contains little of the marvelous, which entered so largely into the spurious martyrologies of a later day. Its genuineness is in fact questioned by no one so far as I am aware. It is one of the most beautiful works of the kind which we have, and well deserves the place in his History which Eusebius has accorded it. We may assume that we have the greater part of the epistle in so far as it related to the martyrdoms. Ado, in his Mart., asserts that forty-eight suffered martyrdom, and even gives a list of their names. It is possible that he gained his information from the epistle itself, as given in its complete form in Eusebius' Collection of Martyrdoms; but I am inclined to think rather that Eusebius has mentioned if not all, at least the majority of the martyrs referred to in the epistle, and that therefore Ado’s list is largely imaginary. Eusebius’ statement, that a “multitude” suffered signifies nothing, for muria was a very indefinite word, and might be used of a dozen or fifteen as easily as of forty-eight. To speak of the persecution as “wholesale,” so that it was not safe for any Christian to appear out of doors (Lightfoot, Ignatius, Vol. I. p. 499), is rather overstating the case. The persecution must, of course, whatever its extent, appear terrible to the Christians of the region; but a critical examination of the epistle itself will hardly justify the extravagant statements which are commonly made in regard to the magnitude and severity of the persecution. It may have been worse than any single persecution that had preceded it, but sinks into insignificance when compared with those which took place under Decius and Diocletian.

It is interesting to notice that this epistle was especially addressed to the Christians of Asia and Phrygia. We know that Southern Gaul contained a great many Asia Minor people, and that the intercourse between the two districts was very close. Irenaeus, and other prominent Christians of Gaul, in the second and following centuries, were either natives of Asia Minor, or had pursued their studies there; and so the Church of the country always bore a peculiarly Greek character, and was for some centuries in sympathy and in constant communication with the Eastern Church. Witness, for instance, the rise and spread of semi-Pelagianism there in the fifth century,-a simple reproduction in its main features of the anthropology of the Eastern Church. Doubtless, at the time this epistle was written, there were many Christians in Lyons and Vienne, who had friends and relations in the East, and hence it was very natural that an epistle should be sent to what might be called, in a sense, the mother churches. Valesius expressed the opinion that Irenaeus was the author of this epistle; and he has been followed by many other scholars. It is possible that he was, but there are no grounds upon which to base the opinion, except the fact that Irenaeus lived in Lyons, and was, or afterward became, a writer. On the other hand, it is significant that no tradition has connected the letter with Irenaeus’ name, and that even Eusebius has no thought of such a connection. In fact, Valesius’ opinion seems to me in the highest degree improbable.

¹⁰Of course official imprisonment cannot be referred to here. It may be that the mob did actually shut Christians up in one or another place, or it may mean simply that their treatment was such that the Christians were obliged to avoid places of public resort and were perhaps even compelled to remain somewhat closely at home, and were thus in a sense “imprisoned.”

¹¹xiliarxhj, strictly the commander of a thousand men, but commonly used also to translate the Latin Tribunus militum.

¹²Of the various witnesses mentioned in this chapter (Vettius Epagathus, Sanctus, Attalus, Blandina, Biblias, Pothinus, Maturus, Alexander, Ponticus) we know only what this epistle tells us. The question has arisen whether Vettius Epagathus really was a martyr. Renan (Marc Auréle, p. 307) thinks that he was not even arrested, but that the words “taken into the number of martyrs” (§10, below) imply simply that he enjoyed all the merit of martyrdom without actually undergoing any suffering. He bases his opinion upon the fact that Vettius is not mentioned again among the martyrs whose sufferings are recorded, and also upon the use of the words, “He was and is a true disciple” (§10, below). It is quite possible, however, that Vettius, who is said to have been a man of high station, was simply beheaded as a Roman citizen, and therefore there was no reason for giving a description of his death; and still further the words, “taken into the order of witnesses,” and also the words used in §10, “being well pleased to lay down his life,” while they do not prove that he suffered martyrdom, yet seem very strongly to imply that he did, and the quotation from the Apocalypse in the same paragraph would seem to indicate that he was dead, not alive, at the time the epistle was written. On the whole, it may be regarded as probable, though not certain, that Vettius was one of the martyrs. Valesius refers to Gregory of Tours (H. E. chaps. 29, 31) as mentioning a certain senator who was “of the lineage of Vettius Epagathus, who suffered for the name of Christ at Lyons.” Gregory’s authority is not very great, and he may in this case have known no more about the death of Vettius than is told in the fragment which we still possess, so that his statement can hardly be urged as proof that Vettius did suffer martyrdom. But it may be used as indicating that the latter was of a noble family, a fact which is confirmed in §10, below, where he is spoken of as a man of distinction.

¹⁴klhron, employed in the sense of “order,” “class,” “category.” Upon the significance of the word klhroj in early Christian literature, see Ritschl’s exhaustive discussion in his Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche, 2d ed., p. 388 sq.

¹⁶pneuma is omitted by three important mss. followed by Laemmer and Heinichen. Burton retains the word in his text, but rejects it in a note. They are possibly correct, but I have preferred to follow the majority of the codices, thinking it quite natural that Eusebius should introduce the pneuma in connection with Zacharias, who is said to have been filled with the “Spirit,” not with the “Advocate,” and thinking the omission of the word by a copyist, to whom it might seem quite superfluous after paraklhton, much easier than its insertion.

²⁰diekrinonto. Valesius finds in this word a figure taken from the athletic combats; for before the contests began the combatants were examined, and those found eligible were admitted (eiskrinesqai), while the others were rejected (ekkrinesqai).

²¹ecetrwsan, with Stroth, Zimmermann, Schwegler, Burton, and Heinichen. ecepeson has perhaps a little stronger ms. support, and was read by Rufinus, but the former word, as Valesius remarks, being more unusual than the latter, could much more easily be changed into the latter by a copyist than the latter into the former.

²²Gieseler (Ecclesiastical History, Harper’s edition, I. p. 127) speaks of this as a violation of the ancient law that slaves could not be compelled to testify against their masters; but it is to be noticed that it is not said in the present case that they were called upon to testify against their masters, but only that through fear of what might come upon them they yielded to the solicitation of the soldiers and uttered falsehoods against their masters. It is not implied therefore that any illegal methods were employed in this respect by the officials in connection with the trials.

²³i.e. of cannibalism and incest; for according to classic legend Thyestes had unwittingly eaten his own sons served to him at a banquet by an enemy, and Oedipus had unknowingly married his own mother. Upon the terrible accusations brought against the Christians by their heathen enemies, see above, Bk. IV. chap. 7, note 20.

²⁵kai di ekeinwn rhqhnai ti twn blasfhmwn. The word blasfhmwn evidently refers here to the slanderous reports against the Christians such as had been uttered by those mentioned just above. This is made clear, as Valesius remarks, by the kai di ekeinwn, “by them also.“

²⁶Valesius maintains that Sanctus was a deacon of the church of Lyons, and that the words apo Biennhj signify only that he was a native of Vienne, but it is certainly more natural to understand the words as implying that he was a deacon of the church of Vienne, and it is not at all difficult to account for his presence in Lyons and his martyrdom there. Indeed, it is evident that the church of Vienne was personally involved in the persecution as well as that of Lyons. Cf. §13, above.

²⁷Pergamos in Asia Minor (mentioned in Rev. ii. 12, and the seat of a Christian church for a number of centuries) is apparently meant here. As already remarked, the connection between the inhabitants of Gaul and of Asia Minor was very close.

³⁰Blasphemy against Christianity, not against God or Christ; that is, slanders against the Christians (cf. §14, above), as is indicated by the words that follow (so Valesius also).

A SELECT LIBRARY OF THE NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. SECOND SERIES TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH PROLEGOMENA AND EXPLANATORY NOTES. VOLUMES I–VII. UNDER THE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D., PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK. AND HENRY WACE, D.D., PRINCIPAL OF KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON. VOLUME I EUSEBIUS PAMPHILUS: CHURCH HISTORY LIFE OF CONSTANTINE ORATION IN PRAISE OF CONSTANTINE. T&T CLARK EDINBURGH WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

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Eusebius, Church History (1st Century A.D. – first half of the 4th century A.D.)

Book IV

Contents

Book IV.