Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
arg| The following are contained in the second book of the Ecclesiastical History. 1. On how the apostles conducted themselves after Christ's ascension. 2. How Tiberius was stirred when Pilate reported to him about Christ. 3. How the message about Christ ran through the whole world in a short time. 4. How, after Tiberius, Gaius appointed Agrippa as king over the Jews, having penalized Herod with endless banishment. 5. How Philo went on an embassy to Gaius on behalf of the Jews. 6. How many evils flooded in upon the Jews after their outrage against Christ. 7. How Pilate too took his own life. 8. On the famine under Claudius. 9. The martyrdom of James the apostle. 10. How Agrippa, also called Herod, after persecuting the apostles, at once felt the justice of God. 11. On Theudas the sorcerer. 12. On Helena, queen of the Adiabenians. 13. On Simon the magician. 14. On Peter the apostle's preaching at Rome. 15. On the Gospel of Mark. 16. How Mark was the first to proclaim the knowledge of Christ to the people of Egypt. 17. What Philo reports about the ascetics in Egypt. 18. Which of Philo's writings have come down to us. 19. What disaster overtook the Jews at Jerusalem on the day of the Passover. 20. What was done in Jerusalem under Nero as well. 21. On the Egyptian, whom the Acts of the Apostles also mentions. 22. How Paul, sent from Judea to Rome as a prisoner, defended himself and was acquitted of every charge. 23. How James, called the brother of the Lord, suffered martyrdom. 24. How Annianus was appointed, after Mark, as first bishop of the church of Alexandria. 25. On the persecution under Nero, during which Paul and Peter were crowned at Rome with martyrdom for the sake of piety. 26. How the Jews were driven round by countless evils, and how they took up their final war against the Romans. We have compiled this book from the writings of Clement, Tertullian, Josephus and Philo.
praef.1| In the preceding book we have set out, in the manner of an introduction, the matters of ecclesiastical history that needed to be distinguished first: the theology of the saving Word, the ancient origins of the doctrines we teach, and the antiquity of the gospel way of life followed by Christians; and, beyond these, all that concerns his recent appearance, the events before his passion, and the choosing of the apostles. In treating these we kept the proofs brief.
praef.2| Come, then: let us now go on to examine what followed his ascension, noting some things from the divine writings and adding to the account other things from outside sources, the records of which we will mention as occasion arises.
1.1| First, then, Matthias was chosen by lot for the apostleship in place of Judas the traitor; he too, as has been shown, had been one of the Lord's disciples. Next, through prayer and the laying on of the apostles' hands, men of proven character, seven in number, were appointed to the diaconate to serve the common needs: these were Stephen and his companions. Stephen was also the first after the Lord, immediately upon his ordination, as though he had been advanced for this very end, to be stoned to death at the hands of the Lord's murderers; and in this way he was first to carry off the crown that matches his name, the crown of the victorious martyrs of Christ.
1.2| At that time, too, James, called the Lord's brother because he also was named a son of Joseph (and Joseph was the father of Christ, since it was to him that the Virgin was betrothed when, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit, as the sacred scripture of the gospels teaches): this same James, whom the men of old surnamed the Just on account of his surpassing virtue, was, they report, the first to be entrusted with the episcopal throne of the church in Jerusalem.
1.3| Clement, writing in the sixth book of his Outlines, presents it this way. He says that after the Savior's ascension Peter, James and John, although they had been honored above the others by the Savior himself, did not contend for glory, but selected James the Just for the bishopric of Jerusalem.
1.4| In the seventh book of that same work, the same author also says this about him: "After the resurrection the Lord delivered the knowledge to James the Just, John and Peter; these handed it to the remaining apostles, while the other apostles handed it to the seventy, one of whom was Barnabas."
1.5| There have been two men named James: one the Just, who was thrown down from the parapet and beaten to death by a fuller's club, the other being the one who was beheaded. Paul too mentions this very James the Just, writing: "But I saw none of the other apostles, except James the brother of the Lord."
1.6| At this time too the promise of our Savior to the king of the Osroenians was being fulfilled. Thomas, by a rather more divine prompting, sent Thaddaeus to Edessa as herald and evangelist of the teaching about Christ, as we showed a little earlier from the document found there.
1.7| When he arrived in that region, he cured Abgar through the word of Christ and astonished everyone there with the marvels of his wonders. Having brought them to a proper disposition by his deeds and led them to reverence for Christ’s power, he made them disciples of the saving teaching. And from that time to this day the entire city of the Edessenes has been given over to the name of Christ, bearing no ordinary proof of our Savior's kindness toward them as well.
1.8| Let this much be said, drawn from the records of ancient times. Let us turn back again to the divine Scripture. At the martyrdom of Stephen the first and greatest persecution by the Jews themselves broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all the disciples, the Twelve alone excepted, were scattered across Judea and Samaria, some of them, as the divine Scripture says, traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, but did not yet dare to bring the nations the word of faith, and proclaimed it to Jews alone.
1.9| At that time Paul too was still ravaging the church, entering the houses of the believers, dragging off men and women and handing them over to prison.
1.10| But Philip also, one of those chosen with Stephen for the ministry, found himself among the scattered and came down into Samaria. Filled with divine power, he preached the word first to those in that place, and such divine grace worked with him that even Simon the magician, together with very many others, was drawn by his words.
1.11| Simon, who was then so widely celebrated, held the deceived in his grip by sorcery to such a degree that they believed him to be the great power of God. But at that time even he was struck with amazement at the marvels performed by Philip through divine power, and he slipped in, feigning faith in Christ as far as the washing.
1.12| It is worth marveling that this very thing is still done today by those who pursue the most defiled heresy descended from him. By the method of their forefather they creep into the church like a plague-bearing, scabby disease, and do the greatest harm to those on whom they can imprint the hard-to-cure and grievous venom hidden within them. Indeed, many of these have already been driven out once they were caught in whatever wickedness they had, just as Simon himself, exposed by Peter for what he was, paid the fitting penalty.
1.13| But as the saving proclamation advanced and grew day by day, a dispensation led a powerful official of its queen out of the land of the Ethiopians (for that nation, by an ancestral custom, is ruled by a woman even to this day). He was the first of the nations to share, through Philip's appearance, in the mysteries of the divine Word, and became the firstfruits of believers throughout the world. Tradition holds that he was the first, on returning to his native land, to announce the knowledge of the God of all, and the life-giving visit of our Savior among human beings, so that through him the prophecy was fulfilled in fact which says that Ethiopia will stretch out her hand to God in advance.
1.14| After these events Paul, the vessel of election, is appointed an apostle, not from men nor through men, but through a revelation from Jesus Christ himself and from God the Father, the one who raised him from the dead, having been judged worthy of the calling by a vision and by the heavenly voice that came with the revelation.
2.1| And now, when our Savior's astonishing resurrection and ascension into the heavens was already widely proclaimed, an old custom prevailed that the governors of the nations report any new developments in their territories to the one holding imperial power, so that nothing that happened might escape him. So Pilate communicated to the emperor Tiberius the reports about the resurrection from the dead of our Savior Jesus, which had by then spread to everyone throughout all Palestine,
2.2| He had learned of his other wonders, and that after rising from the dead he was already believed by the multitude to be a god. Tiberius, they say, brought the matter before the senate, but that body rejected the proposal. Ostensibly this was because it had not first approved the matter itself, since an ancient law was in force that no one among the Romans might be deified except by the vote and decree of the senate; in truth it was because the divine proclamation's saving teaching had no need of verdict or endorsement from men.
2.3| So the Roman senate rejected the message that had been reported about our Savior, and Tiberius, keeping the opinion he had held before, devised nothing improper against the teaching of Christ.
2.4| Tertullian, a man exact in Roman law, distinguished in other respects and among the most illustrious in Rome, sets this down in his defense on behalf of the Christians, which was written in the Roman tongue and has been translated into the Greek language, relating it word for word as follows:
2.5| "But to discuss the origin of such laws as well: there was an ancient decree that no god should be consecrated by an emperor before the senate had approved him. Marcus Aemilius acted in just this way regarding a certain idol of Alburnus. And this has been done on behalf of our teaching, because among you divinity is bestowed by human approval. Unless a god pleases a man, he does not become a god; so, in this matter at least, it is fitting that a man be gracious toward his god.
2.6| Tiberius, then, in whose time the name of the Christians entered the world, when word of this teaching reached him out of Palestine, where it had its start, communicated it to the senate, making clear to them that he himself was pleased with the teaching. But the senate, since it had not approved it itself, rejected it; he remained in his own decision, threatening the accusers of the Christians with death." This was put into his mind by heavenly providence, in its design, so that the word of the gospel, having its beginnings unhindered, might run to every part of the earth.
3.1| Thus, by heavenly power and cooperation, the saving word all at once lit up the whole inhabited world like a ray of the sun. Immediately, in keeping with the divine Scriptures, the voice of his inspired evangelists and apostles went forth through the whole earth, and their words reached the farthest limits of the inhabited world.
3.2| Indeed, throughout every city and village, like a threshing floor filled with grain, churches sprang up all at once, crowded with countless multitudes. Those whose souls had been shackled by ancestral succession and by error from of old, by the ancient disease of idol superstition, were freed by the might of Christ, by means of the teaching of his disciples and at the same time their marvelous works, as if released from cruel masters, and found release from the harshest confinements. They spat upon all demonic polytheism, and confessed that there is one God only, the Maker of all things, and honored him with the ordinances of true piety, through the inspired and temperate worship that our Savior had sown in the life of mankind.
3.3| But now that divine grace was being poured out upon the remaining nations as well, first Cornelius at Caesarea in Palestine, with his whole household, received faith in Christ through a more divine manifestation and the service of Peter, and very many other Greeks at Antioch did too, to whom those scattered in the persecution over Stephen had preached. The church at Antioch was just then flourishing and growing full, and a great many prophets from Jerusalem were present in the same place, and together with them Barnabas and Paul and a further crowd of brothers besides. It was then and there that the appellation of Christians was first given out, as from a fresh and fertile spring.
3.4| And Agabus, one of the prophets who were with them, foretold that a famine was going to come, and Paul and Barnabas were sent off to serve in the ministry of aid to the brothers.
4.1| Tiberius, then, died after reigning about twenty-two years, and after him Gaius took over the rule and at once placed the diadem of the Jewish realm on Agrippa, appointing him king of the tetrarchies of Philip and of Lysanias; to these, not long afterward, he handed over also the tetrarchy of Herod, having punished Herod (this was the one at the time of the Savior's passion), together with his wife Herodias, with perpetual exile for very many charges. Josephus is witness to these things too.
4.2| In his time Philo became widely known, a man most distinguished not only among our own people but also among those who came from the education outside. By descent he was a Hebrew from far back, and he ranked below none of the eminent men in authority at Alexandria.
4.3| How much labor he devoted to the divine and ancestral studies is plain to all from his work, and there is no need to say what sort of man he was in the philosophical and liberal disciplines of the outside education, since he is reported to have devoted himself especially to the training of Plato and Pythagoras, and to have surpassed all his contemporaries.
5.1| This man set down in five books what happened to the Jews under Gaius. He goes through Gaius's madness, how he proclaimed himself a god and committed countless outrages in his rule, and the miseries of the Jews under him; he also tells of the embassy that he himself undertook on behalf of his fellow countrymen in Alexandria, to the city of the Romans, and how, when he stood before Gaius to defend the ancestral laws, he brought away nothing but laughter and mockery, and very nearly endured danger to his life.
5.2| Josephus too mentions these events, writing in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities, word for word, as follows: "When a riot broke out in Alexandria between the Jews who live there and the Greeks, three envoys were chosen from each side of the dispute, and they appeared before Gaius.
5.3| One of the Alexandrian envoys was Apion, who brought many slanders against the Jews, charging among other things that they neglected the honors due to Caesar. For while all who were subject to the Roman empire had set up altars and temples to Gaius and received him in every respect as they did the gods, these people alone, he said, thought it dishonorable to swear by his name and to honor him with statues.
5.4| Apion said many harsh things, by which he hoped, and with reason, to rouse Gaius against them; but Philo, the head of the Jewish embassy, a man of the highest reputation in every way, brother of Alexander the alabarch and not without experience of philosophy, was ready to proceed to a defense against the charges.
5.5| Gaius shut him out, however, ordering him to go away, and being exceedingly angry he was evidently about to do them some terrible harm. Philo went out, having been grossly insulted, and told the Jews around him that they should take courage: Gaius was indeed angry with them, but by his deeds he was already setting God in array against himself."
5.6| So far Josephus. Philo himself, in the work he wrote called the Embassy, sets out accurately and in detail what was done by him at that time. I will pass over most of this and set down only those things by which it will become plain to readers that the misfortunes that came upon the Jews, all at once and not long afterward, came because of what they had dared against Christ.
5.7| First, then, he relates that in the time of Tiberius, in the city of the Romans, Sejanus, who then had great influence with the emperor, put forward an eager effort to destroy the whole nation utterly; and in Judea, Pilate, under whom the audacious acts against the Savior were committed, attempted something concerning the temple in Jerusalem, which was still standing at that time, contrary to what the Jews were permitted, and threw them into the greatest turmoil.
6.1| After the death of Tiberius, he says, Gaius took over the rule and committed many other outrages against many people, but above all did no small harm to the whole nation of the Jews. This one can learn briefly from his own words, in which he writes, word for word, as follows:
6.2| "Such was the inconsistency of Gaius's character toward everyone, but especially toward the Jewish people, whom he bitterly hated. In the other cities he appropriated their houses of prayer, starting with those in Alexandria, filling them with images and statues of his own form (for while he permitted others to dedicate them, he himself set them up by his power), and the temple in the holy city, the only one that had remained untouched and had been deemed worthy of complete inviolability, he tried to alter and remodel into a temple of his own, so that it might be styled that of Gaius, the New Zeus Manifest.
6.3| Countless other terrible things, beyond any telling, which befell the Jews in Alexandria under the emperor in question, the same author relates in the second treatise, which he entitled On Virtues. Josephus agrees with him, likewise indicating that the calamities against the whole nation began from the times of Pilate and from the audacious acts against the Savior.
6.4| Listen, then, to what he too makes plain in these very words, in Book Two of the Jewish War: "Pilate, who had been sent to Judea as procurator by Tiberius, at night and in secret brought the images of Caesar into Jerusalem, covered over; they are called standards. When day came, this stirred up the greatest turmoil among the Jews. Those nearby were struck with dismay when they saw it, since their laws had been trodden under foot; they consider it improper that any image should be set up within the city."
6.5| If you compare this with the writing of the gospels, you will see that before long there came upon them the cry they had raised before Pilate himself, in which they shouted that they had no one as emperor but Caesar alone.
6.6| Then the same historian goes on to relate yet another calamity that overtook them, in these words: "After this he stirred up another disturbance by spending the sacred treasure, which is called the korbanas, on an aqueduct; the water was brought down from a distance of three hundred stadia. The crowd was indignant at this, and as Pilate was present in Jerusalem, they stood around him and cried out against him."
6.7| "But he had foreseen their disturbance, and had mixed among the crowd soldiers armed and dressed in the clothes of private citizens; he forbade them to use the sword, but ordered them to strike the shouters with clubs, and from the tribunal he gave the signal. The Jews were beaten, and many perished from the blows, many trampled by their own people in the flight; and the crowd, stunned at the misfortune of those who had been killed, fell silent."
6.8| In addition to these, the same author shows that countless other uprisings broke out in Jerusalem itself, making clear that from that time on factions and wars and a succession of schemes of evil never ceased for the city and the whole of Judea, until at last the siege under Vespasian overtook them. Thus, then, in some such way did divine justice pursue the Jews for what they had dared against Christ.
7.1| It is worth knowing, too, that report holds that Pilate himself, the Pilate of the Saviour's time, fell, in the days of Gaius, whose times we are going through, into such misfortunes that he was driven to become his own murderer and the punisher of himself with his own hand; divine justice, as it seems, did not delay long in overtaking him. This is told by those Greeks who have written down the Olympiads along with what was done in each period.
8.1| But Gaius, who had held power for not even four full years, was followed by the emperor Claudius. Under him a famine oppressed the inhabited world (this was handed down in their histories even by writers far removed from our account), and the prediction of the prophet Agabus, found in the Acts of the Apostles, that a famine was going to come upon the whole inhabited world, reached its fulfilment.
8.2| Luke, in the Acts, marking the famine under Claudius, and relating how the brothers at Antioch, each according to his means, sent relief to those in Judea through Paul and Barnabas, adds these words:
9.1| "At that time"; plainly he means the time of Claudius; "King Herod laid hands on some of those from the church to harm them, and put James, the brother of John, to death with a sword."
9.2| Concerning this James, Clement also, in the seventh book of the Hypotyposes, sets down an account worth remembering, saying, as from the tradition of those before him, that the man who brought James to the court, seeing him bear witness, was moved, and admitted that he himself was a Christian as well.
9.3| "So the two were led away together," he says, "and on the road the man asked James to forgive him. After thinking a little, James said, 'Peace to you,' and kissed him. And so both were beheaded together."
9.4| Then, as the divine Scripture says, Herod, seeing that the killing of James had pleased the Jews, attacked Peter also and handed him over to chains. He would very nearly have carried out the murder against him as well, had Peter not been released from his bonds in an astonishing way by a divine appearance, an angel standing over him by night, and so been set free for the service of the proclamation. Such, then, was the course of the divine dispensation concerning Peter.
10.1| The king's attempt against the apostles could not be put off any longer. The servant who exacts divine justice went after him at once, right after his plot against the apostles, as the scripture of the Acts relates. He had hurried to Caesarea, and there, on a notable festival day, he dressed himself in splendid royal clothing and addressed the people from a high platform before the tribunal. When the whole populace acclaimed the speech as a god's voice and not a man's, the scripture relates that an angel of the Lord struck him down on the spot, and that he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.
10.2| It is worth marveling at how, even in this extraordinary matter, the account of Josephus agrees with the divine scripture. In it he plainly testifies to the truth in the Antiquities, in its nineteenth book, where he tells the marvel in these very words:
10.3| The third year of his kingship over the whole of Judea had now been completed for him, and he arrived at the city of Caesarea, formerly named Strato's Tower. There he was celebrating spectacles in honor of Caesar, knowing this to be a festival held for Caesar's welfare, and a great crowd of the province's officials and of men of high standing had gathered for it.
10.4| On the second day of the spectacles he put on a robe made entirely of silver, woven so as to be a wonder, and at the start of the day he came into the theater. There the silver, lit by the first strike of the sun's rays, shone out marvelously, glittering with something fearful and awe-inspiring to those who gazed at him.
10.5| At once his flatterers, one from one place and another from another, shouted out words that did him no good, calling him a god and adding, "Be gracious to us. If until now we have feared you as a man, from now on we acknowledge that you are higher than mortal nature." The king neither rebuked them nor rejected the flattery as impious.
10.6| But looking up a little later, he saw an angel seated over his head. He understood at once that this was the cause of his misfortunes, the same who had once been the cause of good things, and he felt a pain pierce his heart, and a sudden ache gripped his belly, beginning with great violence.
10.7| He looked at his friends and said, "I, your god, am now ordered to end my life, since fate immediately refutes the words so falsely spoken of me just now. I, who was called immortal by you, am already being led away to die. But I must accept the destiny that God has willed. For we have lived in no mean fashion, but in the length of days that men call blessed." As he said this he was overcome by the increasing pain, and he was carried in haste to the palace,
10.8| and word spread to everyone that he would be altogether dead in a short while. At once the crowd, with their wives and children, sat in sackcloth according to their ancestral law and entreated God for the king, and everything was full of wailing and lamentation. The king, lying in an upper chamber and looking down at them throwing themselves face down, did not himself stay without tears. After he had been worn down for five days in a row by the pain in his belly,
10.9| he finished his life, in the fifty-fourth year from his birth and the seventh of his reign. He had reigned four years under Gaius Caesar, ruling for three of them the tetrarchy of Philip and receiving that of Herod in the fourth, and he held three more under the rule of Claudius Caesar.
10.10| I admire these statements of Josephus, which, along with the others, agree with the divine scriptures' truth. If anyone thinks there is a disagreement over the king's name, still the time and the deed show him to be the same man, whether the name was changed by some scribal error, or because he had two names, as happens with many people.
11.1| Again, Luke in the Acts introduces Gamaliel, in the deliberation about the apostles, saying that at the time in question Theudas arose, claiming to be somebody, and that he was destroyed and all who had been persuaded by him were scattered. Come, let us set beside this also the writing of Josephus about him. In the same account of his just cited, he relates the following, word for word:
11.2| While Fadus was administering Judea as procurator, a man who was a charlatan, Theudas by name, persuaded most of the crowd to gather up their belongings and go with him to the river Jordan. He claimed to be a prophet, and that at his command he would divide the river and give them an easy passage. With these words he deceived many.
11.3| Fadus, however, did not let them enjoy their folly. He sent out a squadron of cavalry against them, which fell on them unexpectedly, killed many and took many alive. They captured Theudas himself, severed his head and brought it to Jerusalem. After this, the historian goes on to mention the famine that occurred under Claudius, in these words:
12.1| In addition to these events, the great famine also occurred in Judea. During it Queen Helena bought grain from Egypt at great expense and distributed it to those in need.
12.2| You will find this too in agreement with the writing of the Acts of the Apostles, which relates that at Antioch the disciples, each as he was able, determined to send help for the relief of those living in Judea. This they did, dispatching it to the elders through Barnabas and Paul.
12.3| Of Helena, whom the historian mentioned, conspicuous monuments are shown even now in the suburbs of what is now Aelia. She was said to have been queen of the nation of the Adiabenians.
13.1| But as faith in our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ was now spreading among all people, the enemy of human salvation plotted to seize the imperial city in advance. He brought there the Simon already mentioned, and, taking the man's artful sorcery as his ally, won over to the deception a great many of those living in Rome.
13.2| Justin shows this. He was distinguished in our own doctrine not long after the apostles, and I shall set out what is appropriate about him in due time. In the first Apology that he addressed to Antoninus in defense of our teaching, he writes as follows:
13.3| After the Lord ascended into heaven, the demons set forth certain men who claimed to be gods. Not only were these not persecuted by you, but they were even thought worthy of honors. There was a Samaritan, Simon, from a village called Gitta, who in the time of Claudius Caesar, through the craft of the demons at work in him, performed magical feats in Rome, your imperial city, and was regarded as a god. By you he was honored as a god with a statue, set up on the Tiber between the two bridges, bearing this inscription in Latin: simoni deo sancto, which means 'To Simon, holy god.'
13.4| Nearly all the Samaritans, and a few in other nations too, acknowledge him as the first god and worship him. They also say that a certain Helena, who went about with him at that time and had earlier been stationed in a brothel in Tyre of Phoenicia, was the first idea that came forth from him. So far Justin. Irenaeus agrees with him,
13.5| in the first book of the work he wrote Against the Heresies, where he describes together the man's history and his impious and defiling teaching. It would be superfluous to recount that teaching at present, since those who wish may learn in detail the origins and lives of the heresy-founders who came after him, the premises of their false doctrines, and all that they practiced, all of which is handed down, and not as a side matter, in the book of Irenaeus just mentioned. We have received it, then, that Simon was the first originator of every heresy.
13.6| From him down to the present, those who follow his heresy pretend to the Christian philosophy, which is sober and proclaimed among all for its purity of life. Yet they take up again the superstition about idols from which they seemed to have escaped, bowing down to pictures and likenesses of Simon himself and of the Helena mentioned with him, and attempting to worship them with incense, sacrifices and libations. Their more secret rites are another matter,
13.7| of which they say that the one who first hears them will be astounded, and, as one of their written sayings has it, thunderstruck. They are in truth full of amazement, derangement of mind and madness, and are of such a kind that they cannot be committed to writing, nor can sensible men even speak of them aloud, because of their excess of shamefulness and unspeakable obscenity.
13.8| For whatever foulness anyone could imagine, more defiling than any disgrace, the utterly abominable heresy of these people has outdone it all, making sport of wretched women who are, in truth, loaded down with every kind of evil.
14.1| Such was the father and maker of such evils, Simon, whom at that time the malicious power, hater of the good and plotter against human salvation, set up, as it were, as a great champion against the great and divinely inspired apostles of our Savior.
14.2| Nevertheless the divine and heavenly grace, working together with its own servants, quickly put out the flame the evil one had kindled, through their appearing and presence, humbling by their means and tearing down every height raised up against the knowledge of God.
14.3| For this reason no conspiracy of Simon, or of anyone else who sprang up at that time, held its ground during those very apostolic times. The light of truth overcame and overpowered everything, and so did the divine Word himself, who had only just shone on human beings from God, and who was then flourishing on earth and living as a citizen among his own apostles.
14.4| At once the sorcerer I have mentioned, as though the eyes of his mind had been struck by a divine and astonishing flash of light, after he had first been exposed in Judea by the apostle Peter for his wickedness, set out on a vast journey over the sea and went off in flight from east to west, supposing that only in this way could he live as he wished.
14.5| Once he had arrived in the city of the Romans, the great power that lay in wait there helped him, and in a short time his enterprise advanced so far that the people there honored him as a god with the setting up of a statue. Yet this did not go on for long.
14.6| For right on his heels, in the very reign of Claudius, the all-good and most humane providence over the universe led Peter to Rome, that stout and great one among the apostles, the spokesman of all the rest for his excellence, to meet so great a destroyer of life. Like a noble general of God, fenced in with divine weapons, he carried the precious merchandise of the intelligible light out of the east to those in the west, proclaiming that light itself and the saving word of souls, the message of the kingdom of heaven.
15.1| So when the divine Word thus came to stay among them, the power of Simon was extinguished and was destroyed at once, together with the man himself. But such a light of piety shone on the minds of Peter's hearers, so that they were not content with having heard once, nor with the unwritten instruction of the divine message. With every kind of entreaty they begged Mark, whose gospel is in circulation and who was a follower of Peter, to leave them in writing a record of the teaching delivered to them by word of mouth. They did not let up until they had prevailed on the man, and so they became responsible for the writing of what is called the Gospel according to Mark.
15.2| They say that the apostle, when the Spirit revealed to him what had been done, was pleased with the eagerness of these men and authorized the writing for reading in the churches. Clement sets out the account in the sixth book of the Outlines, and the bishop of Hierapolis named Papias bears witness together with him. They add that Peter mentions Mark in his first letter, which they say he composed in Rome itself, and that he indicates this by calling the city Babylon in a figurative way, in these words: "The fellow-elect woman in Babylon greets you, and so does Mark, my son."
16.1| It is said that this Mark was the first to be sent to Egypt, where he proclaimed the gospel which he had also written down, and that he was the first to establish churches in Alexandria itself.
16.2| So great a multitude of men and women there believed from the very first attempt, through a most philosophical and intense discipline, that Philo thought their pursuits, their gatherings, their banquets, and the whole rest of their manner of life worthy of being written about.
17.1| The report is that Philo came into conversation with Peter at Rome in the time of Claudius, when Peter was preaching to the people there. This would not be unlikely, since the work we mention, which he composed later and after some time, clearly contains the rules of the church that are still kept down to us today.
17.2| Indeed, in giving the most exact account possible of the life of our ascetics, he would make it plain not only that he knew the apostolic men of his day, but that he welcomed them, extolled them as divine, and held them in reverence. These men were, it seems, of Hebrew origin, and for that reason still kept most of the ancient customs in a more Jewish manner.
17.3| First of all, in the work he entitled On the Contemplative Life, or Suppliants, he affirms that he will add nothing of his own, beyond the truth, to what he is about to relate. He says that these people, and the women with them, are called Therapeutae and Therapeutrides, and he adds the grounds of such a title: either because, like physicians, they release the souls of those who come to them from the passions of vice and heal and tend them, or because of their pure and sincere service and worship of the divine.
17.4| Whether he himself gave them this name, fitting the title appropriately to the manner of life of these men, or whether the first of them actually called themselves this at the beginning, when the name of Christians had not yet been proclaimed everywhere, there is no need to insist.
17.5| Nevertheless, among the first things he attests is their renunciation of property. He says that when they begin to practice philosophy they hand over their possessions to their relatives; then, having renounced all the cares of life, they go out beyond the walls and spend their time in lonely farmsteads and gardens, knowing well that association with people unlike themselves is unprofitable and harmful. Those who did this at that time, as is likely, were practicing the prophetic way of life, emulating it with ardent and most fervent faith.
17.6| For indeed it is also recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, which is universally accepted, that all the acquaintances of the apostles sold their lands and possessions and distributed the proceeds to everyone according to each person's need, so that none of them was in need. At any rate, as the account says, all who owned fields or houses sold them and brought the prices of what was sold and laid them at the feet of the apostles, so that distribution was made to each according to need.
17.7| Philo, having testified to things much like those just described, goes on in the very same words: "This race is found in many places in the inhabited world; for both the Greek and the barbarian world had to share in what is perfectly good. But it is most numerous in Egypt, in each of the districts called nomes, and especially around Alexandria.
17.8| The best of them from every quarter, as to a homeland of the Therapeutae, are sent out as a colony to a most suitable place, which lies above Lake Mareia on a rather low hill, very well situated for both safety and a temperate climate."
17.9| Then, after describing in order what their dwellings were like, he says this about the churches in that region: "In each house there is a sacred room, called a holy place and monastery, in which they live in seclusion and perform the mysteries of the holy life. They bring nothing into it—no drink, no food, none of the other things necessary for the body's needs—but laws and oracles delivered through prophets, and hymns, and the other writings through which knowledge and piety grow and are brought to perfection." And after other matters he says:
17.10| "For them the whole interval from dawn to evening is a time of training. For they read the sacred writings and philosophize on their ancestral philosophy by allegory, since they regard the words of the literal interpretation as symbols of a hidden nature, made clear through underlying meanings.
17.11| They also have writings by ancient men, founders of their sect, who left many memorials of the method of allegorical interpretation. Using these as a kind of original patterns, they imitate the manner of their way of life."
17.12| These things seem to have been said by the man after he had listened to them expounding the sacred Scriptures. But perhaps it is likely that the ancient writings which he says they possess are the Gospels together with the writings of the apostles, and certain expositions interpreting the ancient prophets, as one would expect, of the kind that the Epistle to the Hebrews and several other letters of Paul contain.
17.13| Then again, next, concerning their composing new psalms, he writes as follows: "So they not only contemplate, but also make songs and hymns addressed to God, in every sort of meter and melody, which they necessarily set down in rather solemn rhythms."
17.14| In the same work he goes through many other matters relating to his subject, but it seemed necessary to gather up those passages by which he sets out the distinguishing marks of the church's way of life.
17.15| But if anyone does not think that what has been said is proper to the conduct of life according to the Gospel, and thinks it can fit others besides those indicated, let him be persuaded at least by Philo's words that follow, in which, if he is fair-minded, he will find testimony on this point that admits no dispute.
17.16| For he writes as follows: "Laying self-control in the soul beforehand like a foundation, they build the other virtues upon it. No one among them would partake of food or drink before sunset, since they judge that philosophizing is worthy of light, while the needs of the body belong to darkness. Hence they have allotted the day to the former, and to the latter only a small portion of the night.
17.17| Some, in whom a stronger desire for knowledge has taken root, are reminded of food only every third day. Others take such delight and pleasure in being feasted by wisdom, which supplies her doctrines richly and without stint, that they hold out for twice that time, and, having grown accustomed to it, scarcely taste necessary nourishment once in six days."
17.18| We consider these words of Philo to be clear and beyond contradiction, and to concern our own people. But if anyone, even after this, goes on arguing and stays obstinate, let him too be rid of his disbelief by yielding to plainer proofs, which are to be found among no others than only in the religion of the Christians according to the gospel.
17.19| For he says that women also live together with those he is discussing, most of whom are aged virgins. They have kept their purity not under compulsion, as certain priestesses of the Greeks have, but by their own free choice, out of zeal and longing for wisdom. In their eagerness to live with her they have disregarded the pleasures of the body, desiring not mortal offspring but immortal ones, which only the soul that loves God is able to bring forth from itself.
17.20| Then, going on a little further, he sets these matters out more expressively: "Their interpretations of the sacred writings come to them through hidden meanings in allegories. For these men think the whole law resembles a living creature, with its literal ordinances as its body, and as its soul the unseen meaning stored up in the words. This meaning this household began to contemplate in an especially fine way, as if in the mirror of the names it had caught sight of the extraordinary beauty of the thoughts reflected there."
17.21| Why need I add to this their gatherings in one place, their separate stays, the men apart and the women apart, in the same place, and the exercises which are still performed among us even now by custom, which we are accustomed to carry out especially at the festival of the Savior's passion, with fasting, night vigils, and attention to the divine words?
17.22| The man I have mentioned recorded these practices in his own writing, noting them in a form still more exact, which has been preserved down to the present among us alone. He tells of the night-long vigils of the great feast and the exercises practiced in them, and of the hymns that we are accustomed to recite, and how, while one person chants in rhythm with good order, the rest listen in silence and join in the closing phrases of the hymns. He also tells how on the days I have indicated they sleep on the ground on mattresses of straw and, as he wrote in these very words, do not taste wine at all, nor any flesh, but have only water to drink, and with their bread eat salt and hyssop as a relish.
17.23| In addition to this he writes of the manner of leadership of those entrusted with the church's services, of the ministries, and of the highest presidency over all, that of the episcopate. Whoever has a desire for exact knowledge of these things may learn it from the account of the man that I have mentioned.
17.24| That Philo wrote these things after he had learned of the first heralds of the teaching of the gospel and of the customs the apostles handed down from the start is plain to everyone.
18.1| Philo was copious in speech and broad in thought, and, lofty and soaring in his contemplation of the divine scriptures, he gave a varied and many-sided exposition of the sacred words. In one part he went through the treatment of Genesis in continuous, orderly sequence, in the work he entitled Allegories of the Sacred Laws. In another part he divided the matters sought out in the scriptures into sections, raising points of inquiry and resolving them, and in these works he gave a fitting title, Questions and Solutions on Genesis and Exodus.
18.2| Besides these he has other studies that he worked out on particular problems, such as On Agriculture in two books, and On Drunkenness in the same number, and certain others that have received their own distinct titles, such as On What the Sober Mind Prays for and Curses, On the Confusion of Tongues, On Fleeing and Finding, On Meeting for Instruction's Sake, On Who Is the Heir of Divine Things or On the Division into Equal and Opposite Parts, and again On the Three Virtues which Moses Recorded along with others,
18.3| In addition to these there is his work On Those Who Have Had Their Names Changed, and the Reasons for the Change, in which he says he also composed two books On Covenants.
18.4| We also have by him On Emigration and the Life of the Wise Man Perfected in Righteousness, or On Unwritten Laws; and On Giants, or On the Unchangeableness of the Divine; and, in five books, On the Fact that, According to Moses, Dreams Are Sent by God. These are the works on Genesis that have reached us.
18.5| On Exodus we know of his Questions and Solutions in five books, and the work On the Tabernacle, the work On the Ten Oracles, and the four books On the Laws Set Out in Summary Form under the Main Headings of the Ten Commandments, as well as the work On the Animals Used in Sacrifices and What the Kinds of Sacrifice Are, and the work On the Rewards Set Forth in the Law for the Good and the Penalties and Curses for the Wicked.
18.6| Besides all these, works of a single book each are also circulated under his name, such as On Providence, the discourse On the Jews composed by him, and The Statesman, and further Alexander, or On the Reason Possessed by the Irrational Animals, and after these the work On Every Base Man Being a Slave, followed by the work On Every Good Man Being Free.
18.7| After these he composed On the Contemplative Life, or On Suppliants, the work from which we have drawn our account of the life of the apostolic men. Also, the interpretations of the names in Hebrew found in the Law and the Prophets are said to be the product of the same man's diligence.
18.8| This man, then, came to Rome during the reign of Gaius, and the account he had written of Gaius' hatred of God, which he entitled, with a touch of character and irony, On Virtues, is said to have been read out before the whole Roman senate in the time of Claudius, so that his words were thought worthy even of being dedicated in the libraries, to general admiration.
18.9| About this time, as Paul was bringing to completion his journey from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum, Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome; and Aquila and Priscilla, departing from Rome together with the other Jews, landed in Asia, and there stayed with the apostle Paul, who was strengthening the foundations of the churches in that region, which he had only just laid. The sacred writing of the Acts is our teacher on this matter as well.
19.1| While Claudius was still administering the empire, it happened at the festival of the Passover that such a riot and disturbance broke out in Jerusalem that, of those alone who were forced together by the crush at the exits of the temple, thirty thousand Jews died, trampled on by one another, and the festival became a time of mourning for the whole nation and of lamentation in every house. This is Josephus' account, word for word.
19.2| Claudius appointed as king of the Jews Agrippa, the son of Agrippa, after dispatching Felix as procurator over all the land of Samaria and Galilee and also of the district called Peraea; and he died, having directed the government himself for thirteen years and eight months, with Nero left as successor to the rule.
20.1| In the time of Nero, with Felix as procurator of Judea, Josephus again, in his own words, writes of the strife of the priests against one another, somewhat as follows, in the twentieth book of the Antiquities:
20.2| A quarrel also broke out between the high priests on one side and the priests and the leading men of Jerusalem's people on the other side, and each of them, gathering together a band of the boldest and most revolutionary men, became its leader; and when they clashed they hurled abuse at one another and threw stones. There was no one to rebuke them, but these things were done with impunity, as in a city without a ruler.
20.3| Such shamelessness and audacity gripped the high priests, so that they dared to dispatch slaves to the threshing floors to take the tithes owed to the priests; and it happened that those priests who were in need could be seen dying of want. So completely did the violence of the rioters prevail over all justice.
20.4| Again, the same historian relates that at the same time a new kind of brigands sprang up in Jerusalem, who, as he says, killed whomever they met by broad daylight, even in the middle of the city.
20.5| For they mingled with the crowd, especially at the festivals, and hid small daggers under their clothing, and with these they stabbed their enemies; then, when the victims fell, the murderers themselves became part of the group expressing indignation at the deed; and so, because of the credibility this gave them, they were wholly undiscoverable.
20.6| The first to be butchered by these men was Jonathan the high priest, and following him many were put to death every day. The fear was worse than the calamities themselves, since each man, as if in a war, expected death at any hour.
21.1| Directly after this he goes on, after some intervening matter, to say: "But the Egyptian false prophet afflicted the Jews with a heavier blow than these. A sorcerer arrived in the country, gained credence for himself as a prophet, and gathered about thirty thousand of those he had deceived. He led them round from the wilderness to the mount called the Mount of Olives, and from there he was ready to force his way into Jerusalem, overpower the Roman garrison, and rule the people as a tyrant, using those who had burst in with him as his bodyguard.
21.2| "But Felix forestalled his attack, advancing to meet him with the Roman heavy infantry, and the whole people joined in the defense. When battle was joined, the Egyptian fled with a few men, while most of those with him were either killed or taken alive."
21.3| So much Josephus records in the second book of his Histories. It is worth comparing what is reported here about the Egyptian with the account given in the Acts of the Apostles: under Felix, the tribune in Jerusalem said to Paul, when the crowd of the Jews was rising up against him: "Are you not, then, the Egyptian who before these days stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand men of the Assassins out into the wilderness?" But so much for the events under Felix.
22.1| Festus was sent by Nero as Felix's successor. Under him Paul made his defense and was taken to Rome as a prisoner. Aristarchus was with him, and Paul fittingly calls him his fellow prisoner somewhere in his letters. And Luke, who also committed the Acts of the Apostles to writing, ended his history here, noting that Paul spent two full years in Rome in freedom and preached the word of God without hindrance.
22.2| Tradition holds that after making his defense on that occasion the apostle set out once more on the ministry of preaching, and that when he came a second time to the same city he was perfected in martyrdom under that emperor. It was during this imprisonment, while he was held in chains, that he composed the second letter to Timothy, in which he points both to his earlier defense and to his perfecting, which was close at hand.
22.3| Take, then, his own testimony on these matters. "At my first defense," he says, "no one stood by me, but everyone abandoned me (may it not be counted against them). Yet the Lord stood beside me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be fully carried out and all the nations might hear; and out of the lion's mouth I was rescued."
22.4| By these words he plainly shows that on the former occasion, so that the proclamation might be completed through him, he was rescued out of the lion's mouth, the lion being a name by which he apparently meant Nero, on account of his savagery. He did not, then, go on to add anything like "he will deliver me from the lion's mouth," since he perceived in the Spirit that his end was already almost upon him.
22.5| That is why, adding to the phrase "and I was delivered out of a lion's mouth" these words, "The Lord will deliver me from every wicked work and will save me for his heavenly kingdom," indicating his imminent martyrdom. He foretells this still more clearly in the same letter where he says, "For I am already being poured out as an offering, and the time of my departure has come."
22.6| Now in the second letter to Timothy he makes clear that only Luke was with him as he wrote, whereas at his first defense not even Luke was. It is natural, then, that Luke brought the Acts of the Apostles to an end at that time, carrying his narrative only up to the point when he was with Paul.
22.7| We have said this to establish that Paul's martyrdom was not accomplished during the stay in Rome that Luke recorded.
22.8| It is likely, indeed, that at the beginning, when Nero was more gently disposed, Paul's defense of his teaching was more readily accepted, but that when Nero went on to lawless outrages, the apostles too, along with the rest, became targets of his attacks.
23.1| As for the Jews, when Paul appealed to Caesar and was sent on by Festus to the city of the Romans, they were disappointed in the hope on which they had built their plot against him, and they turned on James, the brother of the Lord, into whose hands the apostles had committed the episcopal throne in Jerusalem. And this is what they dared to do against him as well.
23.2| They brought him out into the middle and demanded, in front of all the people, that he renounce his faith in Christ. But against everyone's expectation he spoke out freely, with greater boldness than they had anticipated, before the whole crowd, and confessed Jesus, our Savior and Lord, to be the Son of God. They could no longer bear the man's testimony, since all trusted him as the most righteous of men because of the height of philosophy and piety he pursued throughout his life, and so they killed him, seizing on the absence of a governor as their opportunity to act; for Festus had died in Judea at just that moment, and the affairs of the province had been left without a ruler and without a procurator.
23.3| The manner of James's death has already been shown in the words of Clement quoted earlier, where he records that James was hurled from the pinnacle and struck to death with a club. But it is Hegesippus, who belonged to the first generation after the apostles, who gives the most precise account of him. He tells it this way in the fifth book of his Memoirs:
23.4| "Together with the apostles, the church passed into the charge of the Lord's brother, James, whom everyone has called the Just from the Lord's time down to our own, for many men were named James. This one was holy from his mother's womb.
23.5| He drank no wine or strong drink and ate no living creature; no razor ever touched his head, he never anointed himself with oil, and he never used a bath.
23.6| He alone had leave to go into the holy place, since he wore no wool, only linen. He used to go into the sanctuary alone, and he would be found there on his knees, asking forgiveness for the people, with the result that his knees grew as hard as a camel's, because he was constantly bending the knee to worship God and to ask pardon for the people.
23.7| On account of his surpassing justice he was named the Just One and Oblias, which in Greek is 'stronghold of the people' and 'justice,' just as the prophets declare about him.
23.8| Now some of the seven sects among the people, which I described earlier in the Memoirs, asked him what the door of Jesus was, and he told them that Jesus was the Savior.
23.9| As a result some believed that Jesus is the Christ. The sects I have mentioned believed neither in a resurrection nor in one who is coming to repay each according to his deeds; but all who did believe believed because of James.
23.10| So when many even of the rulers were believing, the Jews and scribes and Pharisees were in an uproar, saying that the whole people was in danger of looking to Jesus as the Christ. They came together, then, and said to James: 'We beg you, restrain the people, since they have been led astray to Jesus, as though he were the Christ. We beg you to persuade everyone who comes for the day of the Passover about Jesus, for we all listen to you. We and all the people bear witness to you that you are just and show no partiality.
23.11| So persuade the crowd not to go astray about Jesus, the entire people and all of us obey you. Stand, then, on the pinnacle of the temple, so that you may be seen clearly from up there and your words may be heard by all the people. For because of the Passover all the tribes have gathered, along with the Gentiles as well.'
23.12| So the scribes and Pharisees I have mentioned set James on the pinnacle of the sanctuary, and they shouted to him: 'Just one, whom we all ought to obey, since the people are going astray after the crucified Jesus, tell us what the door of Jesus is.'
23.13| And he answered in a loud voice: 'Why do you question me concerning the Son of Man? He is himself seated in heaven on the right side of the great Power, and is on the point of coming upon the clouds of heaven.'
23.14| Many were fully convinced and gave glory at James's testimony, saying, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!' Then those same scribes and Pharisees spoke among themselves again: 'We did wrong to give Jesus such a testimony. Come, let us climb up and cast him down, so that in fear they will not believe him.'
23.15| And they shouted, saying, 'Ah, ah, even the Just one has gone astray!' Thus they fulfilled the scripture written in Isaiah: 'Let us remove the just man, for he is a difficulty to us; accordingly they will eat the produce of their deeds.'
23.16| So they went up and threw the righteous man down. And they said to one another, "Let us stone James the Righteous," and they began to stone him, since the fall had not killed him. But he turned and knelt, saying, "I beg you, Lord God, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
23.17| While they were stoning him in this way, one of the priests from the sons of Rechab, the son of Rechabim, to whom Jeremiah the prophet bears witness, cried out, "Stop! What are you doing? The righteous man is praying for you."
23.18| Then one of their number, a fuller, took the club he used to beat the water out of clothes and brought it down on the righteous man's head; and so he bore his witness to the death. They buried him on the spot, beside the temple, and his gravestone still stands there beside the temple. He became a true witness to Jews and Greeks alike that Jesus is the Christ. And at once Vespasian laid siege to them.
23.19| That is Hegesippus' full account, and it agrees with Clement's. James was evidently so remarkable a man, and so widely renowned among everyone else for his righteousness, that even the thoughtful among the Jews held this to be the cause of the siege of Jerusalem that followed immediately on his martyrdom: it had come upon them, they believed, for no other reason than the sacrilege they had dared to commit against him.
23.20| Josephus, indeed, did not hesitate to attest this too in writing, in these words: "These things befell the Jews in vengeance for James the Righteous, who was a brother of Jesus called the Christ, since the Jews killed him though he was a most righteous man."
23.21| The same writer also gives an account of his death in Antiquities, book twenty, in these words: "On learning of the death of Festus, Caesar sent Albinus to Judea as governor. The younger Ananus, who, as we said, had received the high priesthood, was rash in temperament and exceptionally bold. He followed the sect of the Sadducees, who are harsher in judgment than all other Jews, as we have already shown.
23.22| Being a man of this kind, then, Ananus thought he had a suitable opportunity, since Festus was dead and Albinus still on his way. He convened a council of judges, brought before it the brother of Jesus called the Christ, whose name was James, along with certain others, accused them of breaking the law, and handed them over to be stoned.
23.23| But those in the city who were regarded as the most fair-minded and as strict in matters of the law took this badly. They sent secretly to the king, urging him to order Ananus to do no such thing again, since he had not acted rightly even the first time. Some of them also went out to meet Albinus while he was traveling from Alexandria, and informed him that Ananus had had no right to convene a council without his consent.
23.24| Persuaded by what they said, Albinus wrote to Ananus in anger, threatening to punish him. And because of this King Agrippa took the high priesthood away from him after he had held it for three months, and installed Jesus the son of Damnaeus." Such, then, is the story of James, to whom the first of the epistles called catholic is said to belong.
23.25| It should be understood, though, that its authenticity is disputed; at any rate, not many of the ancients mentioned it, any more than the one called Jude's, which is likewise one of the seven called catholic. Nevertheless we know that these too, along with the rest, have been read aloud in public in very many churches.
24.1| In the eighth year of Nero's reign, Annianus succeeded Mark the evangelist as the first after him to hold the ministry of the community at Alexandria.
25.1| Once his rule was firmly established, Nero ran aground on unholy pursuits and took up arms against piety itself toward the God of the universe. To describe what sort of depravity this man reached is not a task for the present work.
25.2| Yet since many have handed down his story in the most exact narratives, anyone who wishes can see from them the perversity of the man's extraordinary madness. Driven by it, after destroying countless people without reason, he advanced to such bloodguilt that he did not spare even his closest and dearest, but did away with his mother, his brothers and his wife alike, together with countless others of his family, as though they were personal and public enemies, by every variety of death.
25.3| To all this, it seems, one thing was still lacking to his record: that he should be shown to be the first of the emperors to make war on piety toward God.
25.4| The Roman Tertullian mentions him again, speaking roughly as follows: "Consult your own records. You will find there that Nero was the first to persecute this teaching, at the very time when, having subdued the whole East, he was behaving savagely toward everyone in Rome. We boast of having such a man as the initiator of our punishment. For one who knows that man can grasp that this would not have been condemned by Nero unless it were some great good."
25.5| In this way, then, he was publicly proclaimed the very first enemy of God, and was carried on to the butchery of the apostles. It is recorded that in his reign Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and Peter likewise crucified, and the account is confirmed by the names of Peter and Paul, which have prevailed to this day over the cemeteries there,
25.6| and no less by a churchman named Gaius, who lived when Zephyrinus was bishop of the Romans. In a written debate with Proclus, who led the Phrygian sect, he says these very things about the places where the sacred remains of the apostles in question have been laid:
25.7| "But I can show you the apostles' trophies. For if you are willing to go out to the Vatican or the Ostian Way, there you will find the trophies of the men who laid the foundation of this church."
25.8| That both bore witness at the same time is shown by Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, in a letter addressed to the Romans, as follows: "By so great an admonition you too have blended together the planting of Romans and Corinthians that came from Peter and Paul. For both of them planted in our Corinth as well and taught us alike; and alike they taught together in Italy too, and bore witness at the same time." I have added this so that the facts of the history may be confirmed still further.
26.1| Again Josephus, after relating at great length the calamity that overtook the whole Jewish nation, states in so many words, among a great many other things, that countless numbers of those held in honor among the Jews were scourged and then crucified in Jerusalem itself by Florus. This man was Judea's procurator when the war first flared up, in the twelfth year of Nero's reign.
26.2| Then he says that throughout all Syria as well a terrible upheaval broke out over the revolt of the Jews, as members of the nation were everywhere mercilessly destroyed by the inhabitants of each city as though they were enemies, so that one could see the cities full of unburied bodies, the old men lying dead and thrown out together with infants, and women lacking even the covering that modesty requires, and the entire province filled with unspeakable calamities, while the dread of what was threatened exceeded the outrages committed at any given time. This is what Josephus says, word for word. Such, then, was the state of affairs among the Jews.
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