Ecclesiastical History — Book V

Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

arg| The contents of the fifth book of the Ecclesiastical History are these. 1. How many people, and in what way, fought out the contest for godliness in Gaul under Verus. 2. How the martyrs, beloved of God, welcomed and healed those who had fallen away in the persecution. 3. What vision came to the martyr Attalus in a dream. 4. How the martyrs commended Irenaeus by letter. 5. How God, hearing the prayers of our people, sent rain from heaven for Marcus Aurelius Caesar. 6. A list of those who held the bishopric at Rome. 7. How extraordinary works of power were still being performed through the faithful even down to those times. 8. How Irenaeus makes mention of the divine scriptures. 9. The men who served as bishops under Commodus. 10. On the philosopher Pantaenus. 11. On Clement of Alexandria. 12. On the bishops in Jerusalem. 13. On Rhodo, and the dissension over Marcion which he records. 14. On the false prophets of the Phrygian sect. 15. On the schism that arose at Rome around Blastus. 16. What is recorded about Montanus and the false prophets who followed him. 17. On Miltiades and the treatises he composed. 18. How Apollonius too refuted the Phrygians, and whom he mentioned. 19. Serapion's remarks on the heresy of the Phrygians. 20. What Irenaeus wrote in argument against the schismatics at Rome. 21. How Apollonius bore his martyr's witness at Rome. 22. Which bishops were well known in those times. 23. On the question about the Pascha that was stirred up at that time. 24. On the dispute in Asia. 25. How all came to agree on a single decision about the Pascha. 26. How much of Irenaeus' fine scholarship has come down to us as well. 27. How much has come down from the others who flourished alongside him at that time. 28. On those who first put forward the heresy of Artemon: what sort of men they became in their conduct, and in what manner they presumed to corrupt the holy scriptures.

praef.1| Soter, then, the bishop of the Roman church, departed this life after presiding for eight years. Eleutherus, twelfth in line from the apostles, took over from him, and it was year seventeen of the emperor Antoninus Verus. In that year the persecution against us flared up with fresh violence in certain parts of the world, through attacks by the populace in the various cities, and one may reasonably conjecture from what happened in a single nation that tens of thousands of martyrs distinguished themselves. Those events have in fact been handed down in writing to later generations, since they truly deserve never to be forgotten.

praef.2| The full and most complete account of these matters we have set down in our collection of the martyrs, a work that offers not only a historical narrative but an instructive one as well. Whatever belongs to the present undertaking, however, I will select from it and set out here.

praef.3| Other writers of history would certainly have committed to writing victories in war and trophies won over enemies, the exploits of generals and the brave deeds of soldiers, men stained with blood and countless slaughters on behalf of children and country and their remaining property.

praef.4| But our narrative of the commonwealth that lives according to God will inscribe on everlasting monuments the most peaceful of wars, fought for the peace of the soul itself, and the men who showed their courage in them for truth rather than for country, and for godliness rather than for those dearest to them. It will proclaim, for everlasting remembrance, the steadfastness of the athletes of godliness and their courage under so much suffering, their trophies over demons and their victories over invisible adversaries, and the crowns that came to them at the end of it all.

1.1| The country in which the arena of these events was set was Gaul. Its renowned metropolitan cities, famed above the rest in that region, are Lyons and Vienne, and through both of them flows the river Rhone, which runs through the whole land with its abundant stream.

1.2| The most illustrious churches there sent the account of the martyrs to the churches throughout Asia and Phrygia, recording what had taken place among them in the following way.

1.3| I will set out their own words. "The servants of Christ who are sojourning in Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, to our brothers throughout Asia and Phrygia, who hold with us one and the same faith and hope of redemption: may peace and grace and glory be yours from God the Father and from Christ Jesus our Lord."

1.4| Then, after some further prefatory remarks, they begin their account with these words: "The greatness of the affliction here, the fury of the gentiles against the saints, so intense, and all that the blessed martyrs endured, we are not able to describe with precision, nor indeed is it possible to capture it in writing."

1.5| The Adversary threw himself on us with all his strength, already making a prelude to his coming, which was soon to be unrestrained. He went through every place, accustoming his own people and training them against the servants of God, so that we were not only shut out of houses, baths and the marketplace, but it was forbidden that any one of us should appear at all, in whatever place.

1.6| But the grace of God fought on the other side. It rescued the weak and set against the enemy steadfast pillars, able through endurance to draw the whole assault of the evil one onto themselves. These men closed with him, bearing every kind of abuse and punishment; they counted great things as small and hurried toward Christ, showing in truth that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

1.7| First of all they bravely endured what the whole populace heaped on them in masses: shouting, blows, draggings, plunderings, stonings, imprisonments, and everything that an enraged crowd is accustomed to do against enemies and foes.

1.8| Then they were led into the marketplace by the tribune and by the authorities in charge of the city, and were examined before the whole crowd. When they had confessed, they were confined in the prison until the governor's arrival.

1.9| Afterward they were brought before the governor, who treated us with every sort of cruelty. Then Vettius Epagathus, one of the brothers, a man filled to the full with love for God and for his neighbor, came forward. His way of life had been so exact that, though he was young, he was judged equal to the elder Zacharias in witness. He had walked blamelessly in every commandment and ordinance of the Lord, and was tireless in every service to his neighbor, having great zeal for God and fervent in spirit. A man of this sort could not bear the judgment so irrationally passed against us, but was deeply indignant and asked to be heard himself in defense of the brothers, to show that there was nothing godless or impious among us.

1.10| Those around the tribunal shouted him down, for he was a man of distinction. The governor would not tolerate the entirely just request he had put forward, and asked only whether he too was a Christian. When Vettius confessed this in a most clear voice, he too was taken up into the company of the martyrs. He was called the Advocate of the Christians, but he had the Advocate within himself, the spirit of Zacharias, which he showed through the fullness of his love, being well content to lay down even his own life in defense of the brothers. For he was, and is, a genuine disciple of Christ, who follows the Lamb wherever he goes.

1.11| From this point the rest were sorted out. The first martyrs became manifest and ready, and they completed the confession of their witness with all eagerness. But others also appeared who were unready, untrained and still feeble, unable to sustain the tension of so great a contest. About ten of these miscarried. They caused us great grief and measureless mourning, and dampened the zeal of those others not yet seized. Yet although these suffered every terror, they nevertheless stayed beside the martyrs and did not abandon them.

1.12| At that time all of us were greatly alarmed because of the uncertainty of the confession. We did not fear the punishments being inflicted, but looked to the end and dreaded that someone might fall away.

1.13| Nevertheless, each day those who were worthy were arrested, filling up the number of those who had fallen, so that all the zealous members were gathered out of the two churches, the very men on whom the affairs of the place chiefly depended.

1.14| Some Gentile servants of ours were also arrested, since the governor had ordered publicly that we all be searched out. Through an ambush of Satan, they were afraid of the tortures they saw the saints suffer, and the soldiers urged them on. So they falsely accused us of Thyestean banquets and Oedipodean unions, and of whatever else it is not lawful for us to speak or even to think, and which we cannot even believe ever happened among human beings.

1.15| When these reports were spread about, everyone turned savage against us. Even those who had earlier been moderate on account of family ties now became bitterly angry and gnashed their teeth at us. What our Lord had said was fulfilled: that a time will come when everyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God.

1.16| From then on the holy martyrs underwent punishments beyond all description, as Satan was eager that something blasphemous should be spoken through them as well.

1.17| The whole fury of the crowd, the governor and the soldiers fell with extraordinary violence on Sanctus, the deacon from Vienne; on Maturus, a new convert but a noble contender; on Attalus, a Pergamene by birth, who had always been a pillar and foundation of the believers here; and on Blandina. Through her Christ showed that what seems cheap, unsightly and contemptible among human beings is thought worthy of great glory with God, because of love for him, a love displayed in power and not boasted of in appearance.

1.18| For while all of us were afraid, and her earthly mistress, who was herself among the martyrs contending in the struggle, was in anguish lest Blandina would be unable even to make her confession boldly because of the weakness of her body, Blandina was filled with so much power that those who took turns torturing her in every way from dawn until evening were exhausted and spent. They themselves admitted that they were beaten, since they had nothing left to do to her, and they marvelled that she still breathed, though her whole body was broken and laid open; they testified that any one form of torment was enough to take her life, let alone so many and such severe ones.

1.19| But in her confession the blessed woman, like a noble athlete, gathered new strength. To say, "I am a Christian, and nothing wicked is done among us," was refreshment, rest and insensibility to what was happening to her.

1.20| Sanctus, too, bore nobly and beyond all measure, beyond any human being, all the cruelties that men could inflict. The lawless men hoped that, through the persistence and severity of the tortures, they would hear something improper from him. But he stood against them with such firmness that he did not even tell his own name, or his people, or the city he came from, or whether he was slave or free. To every question he replied in the Roman language, "I am a Christian." This he kept confessing, over and over, in place of a name, a city, a race and everything else; and the pagans heard no other word from him.

1.21| As a result there was great rivalry against him between the governor and the torturers, so that, having nothing more left to do to him, they finally fastened glowing plates of bronze to the tenderest parts of his body.

1.22| These burned, but he himself stayed unbending and unyielding, steadfast toward the confession, cooled as with dew and made strong by the heavenly spring of the water of life that issues from the belly of Christ.

1.23| His wretched body bore witness to what had happened: all wound and bruise, shrunken, and stripped of its outward human form. In that body Christ, suffering, accomplished great glories, defeating the Adversary and showing the rest, as a pattern, that nothing is fearful where the Father's love is, and nothing painful where Christ's glory is.

1.24| For when, some days later, the lawless men tortured the martyr again, thinking that if they applied the same instruments while his body was swollen and inflamed they would overcome him, since he could not endure even the touch of a hand, or that if he died under the tortures he would put fear into the rest, not only did nothing of the kind happen to him, but beyond all human expectation his poor body rose up and was straightened in the later tortures, and recovered the use of its limbs and its former appearance. So the second torture became for him, through the grace of Christ, not a punishment but a healing.

1.25| Biblis also, among those who had denied, the devil thought he had already swallowed; and wishing to condemn her through blasphemy as well, he led her out to punishment, forcing her to say godless things about us, as one already easily broken and unmanly.

1.26| But under the torture she came to her senses and, as it were, woke from deep sleep, reminded by this temporary punishment of the eternal punishment in Gehenna. She contradicted the blasphemers outright, saying, "How could such people eat children, when they are not even permitted to eat the blood of irrational animals?" From then on she confessed herself a Christian and was numbered in the lot of the martyrs.

1.27| When the tyrants' tortures had been made useless by Christ through the blessed ones' endurance, the devil devised other schemes: shutting them up in prison, in darkness and in the most wretched place; stretching their feet in the stocks, spread apart as far as the fifth hole; and all the other outrages that angry jailers, filled with the devil as they were, are accustomed to inflict on their prisoners. As a result most of them were suffocated in the prison, all those, at least, whom the Lord wished to depart in this way, displaying his own glory.

1.28| For some who had been tortured so cruelly that they seemed unable to live even if they received every kind of care stayed on in the prison, deprived of human attention, yet restored by the Lord and strengthened in body and soul, and they urged on and comforted the rest. But the young, who had only just been arrested and whose bodies had not been worn down beforehand, could not bear the weight of confinement and died inside.

1.29| The blessed Pothinus, entrusted with the ministry of the bishopric at Lugdunum, was over ninety years of age and very weak in body. He was scarcely breathing because of his bodily weakness, but was revived by eagerness of spirit through his pressing desire for martyrdom. He too was dragged to the tribunal, his body broken down by both old age and sickness, but his soul preserved within him so that Christ might triumph through it.

1.30| Carried to the tribunal by the soldiers, accompanied by the civil authorities and the whole crowd, who shouted all sorts of cries at him as though he were Christ himself, he gave his noble testimony.

1.31| When the governor asked him who the God of the Christians might be, he answered, "If you are worthy, you will know." Thereupon he was dragged away without mercy and suffered blows of every kind. Those close by abused him in every way with hands and feet, with no respect even for his age, while those farther off hurled at him whatever each had in hand. All thought that they would be committing a great offense and impiety if anyone fell short in outrage against him, for they supposed that in this way they would avenge their gods. Barely breathing, he was thrown into the prison, and after two days he breathed his last.

1.32| Then a great dispensation of God took place, and the immeasurable mercy of Jesus was made plain, something rare among the brotherhood, yet not lacking in the craft of Christ.

1.33| For those who had denied at the first arrest were shut up as well and shared in the sufferings. Denial did them no good even at that time. Those who admitted what they truly were were imprisoned as Christians, with no other charge brought against them, but the deniers were from then on held as murderers and defiled persons, and were punished twice as heavily as the rest.

1.34| For the others were lightened by joy in martyrdom, hope in the promises, love toward Christ, and the paternal Spirit, whereas the deniers were severely punished by their conscience, so that even among all the rest their faces were conspicuous as they passed by.

1.35| The first group went forward cheerful, with glory and great grace mingled in their faces, so that even their chains hung about them as a becoming adornment, like a bride adorned with golden tasseled fringes of many colors, and they gave off the fragrance of Christ at the same time, so that some thought they had been anointed with worldly perfume. The others were downcast, humbled, ugly, and full of every disgrace, and in addition were reproached by the pagans as ignoble and unmanly, bearing the charges of murderers, and having lost the all-honored, glorious, life-giving name. When the rest saw this they were strengthened, and those who were arrested confessed without hesitation, giving no thought to the devil's reasoning.

1.36| After adding some remarks between these, they go on again: After this, then, their martyrdoms were divided into every kind in the manner of their departure. For they wove a single crown out of varied colors and flowers of every kind, and offered it to the Father. It was fitting, then, that the noble athletes, having endured a varied contest and won a great victory, should receive the great crown of incorruption.

1.37| Maturus, Sanctus, Blandina, and Attalus were led to the beasts in the public arena, to a spectacle of the pagans' inhumanity shared by all, the day of the wild-beast fights having been given over on purpose because of our people.

1.38| Maturus and Sanctus again went through the whole range of punishment in the amphitheater, as though they had previously suffered nothing at all; or, rather, as athletes who had already thrown their opponent in several rounds and were now contesting the crown itself, they endured once more the running of the whips, which was the custom there, the mauling of the beasts, and everything else that the maddened crowd, some from one place and some from another, shouted and demanded, and last of all the iron chair, on which their bodies roasted and glutted them with the reek of fat.

1.39| Even so the crowd did not stop, but raged still more, wishing to overcome their endurance; and from Sanctus they heard nothing else than the words of confession that he had been accustomed to say from the beginning.

1.40| So these two, whose souls held out for a long time through a great contest, were finally sacrificed, having become a spectacle for the world throughout that day in place of all the variety of the gladiatorial shows.

1.41| Blandina, however, was hung on a post and exposed as food for the beasts that were let in. Because she was seen hanging in the shape of a cross, and through her fervent prayer, she put great eagerness into the combatants; for in their struggle they looked with their outward eyes, through their sister, upon the one who was crucified for them, to persuade those who believe in him that anyone who suffers for Christ's glory has fellowship forever with the living God.

1.42| Since none of the beasts touched her then, she was taken down from the post and brought back to the prison, kept for another contest, so that, victorious through many trials, she might make the sentence against the crooked serpent irrevocable and encourage the brothers; for she was small, weak and despised, yet clothed in Christ, the great and invincible athlete, and she had overpowered the adversary through many rounds and through the struggle had won the crown of incorruption.

1.43| Attalus too was loudly demanded by the crowd, for he was well known; and he entered ready for the contest because of his clear conscience, since he had been genuinely trained in the Christian discipline and had always been a witness to the truth among us.

1.44| He was led around the circuit of the amphitheater, with a placard going in front of him, inscribed in Latin, "This is Attalus the Christian," while the people were intensely excited against him. But the governor, on finding out he was a Roman, ordered that he be taken back with the others who were in prison, about whom he had written to Caesar and was awaiting his decision.

1.45| The time in between was not idle or fruitless for them; rather, through their endurance the measureless mercy of Christ was made plain. For through the living the dead were being given life, and martyrs were bestowing favors on those who were not martyrs, and there was great joy for the virgin mother, as she received back alive those whom she had miscarried as dead.

1.46| For through them most of those who had denied were measured up again, conceived again, rekindled, and learned to confess; and now alive and strengthened they came to the tribunal, with God, who does not wish the death of the sinner, but shows kindness toward repentance, making it sweet to them, so that they might be questioned once more by the governor.

1.47| For Caesar had written that some were to be beaten to death, but that any who denied were to be released. When the local festival was beginning (it is a crowded gathering, with people from all the nations coming together to it), the governor brought the blessed ones up to the tribunal, making a spectacle of them and parading them before the crowds. For this reason he examined them again, and those who seemed to hold Roman citizenship he beheaded, and the rest he sent to the beasts.

1.48| Christ was greatly glorified in those who had earlier denied but now, contrary to the expectation of the pagans, confessed. For they were examined separately, as if they were indeed to be released, and by confessing they were added to the company of the martyrs. But those remained outside who had never had a trace of faith, nor any sense of the wedding garment, nor any conception of the fear of God, but whose conduct blasphemed the Way; that is, the sons of perdition. All the rest were joined to the church.

1.49| As these were being questioned, one Alexander, Phrygian by race and a doctor by training, who had spent many years in Gaul and was known to almost everyone for his love toward God and his freedom in speaking the word (for he was not lacking a portion of the apostolic gift), took his place at the tribunal and encouraged them by gestures to confess. He was plainly visible to those standing around the tribunal, like a woman in labor.

1.50| The crowds were enraged that those who had earlier denied the faith were now confessing it again, and they shouted against Alexander as though he were responsible. The governor stopped and questioned him about who he was. When Alexander said that he was a Christian, the governor flew into a rage and condemned him to the wild beasts. On the next day he entered the arena together with Attalus, for the governor, to please the crowd, handed Attalus over to the beasts again as well.

1.51| These two went through every instrument of torture that had been devised in the amphitheater and endured a very great contest, and in the end they too were sacrificed. Alexander neither groaned nor uttered a sound at all, but conversed with God in his heart.

1.52| Attalus, when he was set upon the iron chair and was being burned all around, and the reek rose up from his body, said to the crowd in the Roman language, "Look, this is eating human beings, what you are doing. We neither eat human beings nor do anything else wicked." Asked what name God has, he answered, "God does not have a name as a man does."

1.53| After all this, on the last day of the gladiatorial games, Blandina was brought in again, together with Ponticus, a boy of about fifteen years. They had been led in every day to watch the punishment of the others, and they were forced to swear by the crowd's idols. Because they stood firm and treated the idols with contempt, the crowd was roused to savage fury against them, so that they had no pity for the boy's youth and no respect for the woman,

1.54| but exposed them to every terror and drew them through the whole cycle of tortures, repeatedly forcing them to swear, yet unable to make them do it. Ponticus, urged on by his sister, so that even the pagans could see that she was the one encouraging and strengthening him, bravely endured every torture and gave up his spirit.

1.55| The blessed Blandina came last of all. Like a noble mother who had urged on her children and sent them ahead as victors to the King, she herself went over again all the contests of her children and hurried to join them, rejoicing and exulting in her departure, as though she had been invited to a wedding banquet rather than thrown to the beasts.

1.56| After the scourges, after the beasts, after the griddle, she was at last cast into a basket and exposed to a bull. She was tossed about for a long time by the animal, yet she no longer felt what was happening to her, because of her hope, her hold on what she believed, and her converse with Christ. She too was sacrificed, and the pagans themselves admitted that never among them had a woman suffered such things, and so many.

1.57| But even so their madness and their cruelty toward the saints were not satisfied. Savage and barbarous tribes, stirred up by a savage beast, were hard to calm, and their outrage took a new and separate beginning against the bodies.

1.58| For having been defeated did not shame them, since they had no human capacity for reflection; rather it inflamed their anger like that of a wild animal. The governor and the people alike displayed the same unjust hatred toward us, so that the scripture might be fulfilled: "Let the lawless man still act lawlessly, and let the righteous man still be made righteous."

1.59| For they threw to the dogs those who had been suffocated in the prison, carefully keeping watch night and day lest any of them be buried by us. Then they set out the remains left by the beasts and by the fire, some torn to pieces, some charred, and the heads of the rest along with their severed trunks, and likewise they guarded these unburied, with a soldier's diligence, for many days.

1.60| Some raged against them and ground their teeth, seeking to take some further vengeance on them. Others laughed and jeered, exalting their idols and ascribing to them the punishment of these men. Still others, more reasonable and seeming to feel some sympathy, reproached them bitterly, saying, "Where is their God, and what good did their religion do them, which they chose even above their own lives?"

1.61| So their side showed this variety of behavior, while our side was plunged into great grief because we could not hide the bodies in the earth. Night gave us no help in this, money did not persuade them, and entreaty did not move them. They kept watch in every way, as though they stood to gain something great if the bodies did not receive burial.

1.62| After other matters they go on to say: The bodies of the martyrs, having been made public examples in every way and left in the open air for six days, were then burned and charred to cinders by the lawless men, and swept into the Rhone, the river flowing close by, so that not even a remnant of them should still be seen upon the earth.

1.63| They did these things as though they could defeat God and rob the martyrs of their rebirth, so that, as they put it, the martyrs might have no hope of resurrection, trusting in which they bring in a strange, new religion among us, despise terrors, and go readily and even joyfully to their deaths. "Let us see now if they will be raised up, and whether their God has power to help them and to snatch them out of our hands."

2.1| Such were the sufferings of the churches of Christ under the emperor mentioned, and from them it is possible to form a reasonable estimate of what was done in the remaining provinces. It is worth adding to these accounts further words from the same document, in which the gentleness and kindness of the martyrs just described is recorded, in these very terms:

2.2| They became such zealous imitators of Christ, who, existing in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to seize, that although they were in such glory, and had given their testimony, not once or twice, but many times, and had been taken back from the wild beasts, and bore about them the brands, the bruises and the wounds, they neither proclaimed themselves martyrs nor allowed us to address them by this name; and if any of us ever called them martyrs, in a letter or in conversation, they rebuked him sharply.

2.3| For they gladly gave up the title of martyr to Christ, the witness faithful and true, the firstborn from the dead and the author of the life of God. They recalled the martyrs who had already departed, saying, "Those are martyrs already, whom Christ has deemed worthy of being received up in their confession, setting the seal on their testimony by departing; but we are modest and lowly confessors." And with tears they begged the brothers, asking that fervent prayers be made for their being brought to perfection.

2.4| They demonstrated the power of martyrdom in deed, speaking with great boldness to the Gentiles, and they made their noble character plain through endurance, fearlessness and lack of dread; yet they declined the title of martyrs from their brothers, being filled with the fear of God.

2.5| And again, after a few remarks, they say: These men lowered themselves under the mighty hand, through which they are now highly exalted. Then they defended everyone but accused no one; they set all free and bound none; and for those who dealt cruelly with them they prayed, just as Stephen, the perfect martyr, did: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." And if he pleaded for those who were stoning him, how much more for the brothers.

2.6| And again, after other matters, they say: For this was their greatest war against him, because of the genuineness of their love, so that the beast, choking, might vomit up alive those whom he had earlier thought he had swallowed. For they did not take pride against the fallen; rather, in what they themselves had in abundance, they helped those who were in need, having a mother's tender feelings, and shedding many tears for them before the Father, they begged for life, and to them he gave it.

2.7| This they also shared with their neighbors, and departed to God victorious in every respect. They had always loved peace and had commended peace to us, and in peace they went to God, leaving behind no distress for their mother, and no faction or war for their brothers, but joy, peace, harmony and love.

2.8| Let this be set down, for its usefulness, concerning the tender love those blessed ones showed to the brothers who had fallen, in view of the inhuman and merciless disposition of those who afterward dealt so ruthlessly with the members of Christ.

3.1| The same document of the martyrs mentioned above contains another account worthy of remembrance, and no one could object to our setting it before those who will read it. It runs as follows.

3.2| There was one of them, Alcibiades, who lived a very austere life and at first partook of nothing at all, using only bread and water, and who tried to carry on in this way even in prison. After the first contest that Attalus fought in the amphitheater, it was revealed to Attalus that Alcibiades was not acting rightly in not using the creatures of God and in leaving behind for others an example that might cause them to stumble.

3.3| Alcibiades was persuaded and partook of everything freely, and gave thanks to God; for they were not without the oversight of God's grace, but the Holy Spirit was their counselor. So much for these matters.

3.4| Meanwhile Montanus, Alcibiades and Theodotus, in Phrygia, were just then for the first time spreading among many people the notion of prophesying. (For many other miraculous works of the divine gift were still being performed at that time in various churches, and these led many to believe that those men too were prophesying.) When a dispute arose over the people just mentioned, the brothers in Gaul again set out their own judgment on these matters as well, a careful and thoroughly orthodox one. They included various letters of the martyrs who had been perfected among them, which, while still in chains, they had written out for the brothers in Asia and Phrygia, and also for Eleutherus, then bishop of the Romans, on an embassy for the sake of the peace of the churches.

4.1| The same martyrs also commended Irenaeus, who was by then presbyter in the community at Lyons, to the bishop at Rome mentioned above, giving the man the highest testimony, as the following words show:

4.2| "We pray that you may rejoice in God, again and always, Father Eleutherus. We have urged Irenaeus, our brother and partner, to bring this letter to you; we ask you to hold him in regard, as one zealous for Christ's covenant. For if we knew that rank could win anyone righteousness, we would have commended him first of all as presbyter of the church, which indeed is his office."

4.3| Why should I list the catalogue of the martyrs given in the document mentioned, setting apart those perfected by the severing of the head, those thrown to wild beasts as food, those who fell asleep in the prison, and the count of confessors still alive at that time? Anyone who likes can easily learn all this in full by taking in hand the work itself, which, as I said, has been included by me in my collection of the martyrs. But such were the events under Antoninus.

5.1| The story goes that his brother, Marcus Aurelius Caesar, drawn up in battle against the Germans and Sarmatians, found himself helpless when his army was oppressed by thirst. The soldiers of the legion called the Melitene, which has stood firm in faith from that day to this, knelt on the ground in the battle line facing the enemy, according to our own custom in prayer, and turned to entreaties to God.

5.2| The enemy were astonished at such a sight, but the story goes that something still more astonishing at once overtook them: a thunderbolt that drove the enemy into flight and destruction, and a downpour of rain upon the army of the men who had called upon the divine, reviving the whole of it when it was just about to perish from thirst.

5.3| This account is also given by writers far removed from our teaching, who took an interest in writing about the times in question, and it has been reported by our own writers as well. But the outside historians, being strangers to the faith, record the marvel, yet do not admit that it came about through the prayers of our people; our writers, being friends of the truth, have handed down what was done in a plain and unmalicious manner.

5.4| Among these would be Apolinarius, who says that the legion that performed the marvel by prayer received from the emperor from that time a name fitting the event, being called in the Roman tongue the Thundering Legion.

5.5| A reliable witness to this would be Tertullian, who addressed to the senate his Roman defense of the faith, which I mentioned earlier, and who confirms the story with greater and clearer proof.

5.6| He writes, then, that letters of the most prudent emperor Marcus are still in circulation, in which Marcus himself testifies that in Germany his army, about to perish for lack of water, was saved through the Christians' prayers; and he says that this emperor also threatened death to those who tried to accuse us. To this the man mentioned adds the following:

5.7| "What sort of laws are these, then, which impious, unjust and cruel men enforce against us alone? Vespasian did not keep them, though he had conquered the Jews; Trajan partly disregarded them, forbidding Christians to be sought out; neither Hadrian, though he meddled in every curious matter, nor he who was called the Pious confirmed them." But let anyone settle these matters as he wishes; let us move on to the sequence of what follows.

5.8| When Pothinus died, having lived a full ninety years, together with those who bore witness in Gaul, Irenaeus succeeded to the oversight of the community at Lyons, which Pothinus had led. We have learned that Irenaeus had been a hearer of Polycarp in his youth.

5.9| After setting out the succession of the bishops of Rome in book three of his work Against the Heresies, he brings the list down to Eleutherus, whose times are the ones we are examining, since he composed the work in that man's day, and he writes as follows:

6.1| When the blessed apostles had founded and built up the church, they handed the episcopal office to Linus. This Linus is mentioned by Paul in his letters to Timothy.

6.2| Anencletus succeeded him, and after him Clement, third in line from the apostles, obtained the episcopate. He had himself seen the blessed apostles and been in their company, and he still had the apostles' preaching ringing in his ears and their tradition before his eyes. He was not alone in this, for many were still left at that time who had been taught by the apostles.

6.3| In the time of this Clement, then, no small dissension arose among the brothers at Corinth, and the church in Rome wrote to the Corinthians a most weighty letter, bringing them together into peace, and renewing their faith and the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles.

6.4| And after a few words he says: Clement was succeeded by Evaristus, and Evaristus by Alexander. Then Xystus was appointed, the sixth from the apostles; after Xystus came Telesphorus, who also bore a glorious martyrdom. Next came Hyginus, then Pius, after whom came Anicetus. Soter followed Anicetus, and now Eleutherus, twelfth from the apostles, holds the inheritance of the episcopate.

6.5| By this same order and this same teaching, the apostles' tradition in the church, and the proclamation of the truth, has come down to us.

7.1| Irenaeus set this down in agreement with the accounts we have already gone through, in the work he entitled Refutation and Overthrow of Falsely Named Knowledge, which has five books. In the second book of this same work he indicates, in the following words, that examples of the divine and marvelous power had been left even down to his own time in some churches:

7.2| They are so far from raising a dead person, as the Lord raised the dead, and as the apostles did through prayer, and as has often happened in the brotherhood when need required, the whole church of that place having asked with fasting and much supplication, and the spirit of the deceased returned and the man was given back in answer to the prayers of the saints.

7.3| And again he says, after other matters: If they claim that the Lord did such things only in appearance, we shall lead them back to the prophetic writings and show from these that everything was foretold about him in this way and happened firmly so, and that he alone is God's Son. For this reason his true disciples, having received grace from him, perform works in his name to the benefit of other people, according to the gift each has received from him.

7.4| Some drive out demons surely and truly, so that often those very people who have been cleansed of the evil spirits come to believe and belong to the church. Others have foreknowledge of what is to come, and visions, and prophetic utterances. Others heal the sick by laying on their hands and restore them to health. And already, as we said, even the dead have been raised and have remained with us for many years. And what more?

7.5| It is impossible to count the gifts that the church throughout the whole world has received from God and performs every day, in the name of Jesus Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate, for the benefit of the nations, neither deceiving anyone nor making money from it. For just as she received freely from God, so she serves freely.

7.6| And in another place the same writer says: Just as we also hear that many brothers in the church have prophetic gifts, and speak through the Spirit in all kinds of tongues, and bring people's hidden things into the open for their benefit, and expound the mysteries of God. This he says to show that varied gifts remained among the worthy up to the times mentioned.

8.1| At the beginning of this work we made a promise that, as occasion offered, we would set out the words of the ancient churchmen, both elders and writers, in which they handed down in writing the traditions concerning the canonical scriptures that had come down to them. Irenaeus was one of these, so come, let us set out his words too,

8.2| and first those concerning the sacred gospels, which run as follows: Matthew, among the Hebrews, in their own language, also produced a written gospel, at the time when Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel in Rome and founding the church;

8.3| After their departure, Mark, Peter's disciple and interpreter, himself also handed down to us in writing what Peter had preached; and Luke, Paul's follower, deposited in a book the gospel preached by him.

8.4| Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who had also leaned back upon his breast, himself too published the gospel while he was staying at Ephesus in Asia.

8.5| These things, then, are said in the third book of the work just mentioned. In the fifth, concerning the Revelation of John and the numerical value of the name of the Antichrist, he sets out the following: Since this is the situation, and the number is found in all the good and ancient copies, and those who beheld John face to face bear witness to it, and reason itself teaches us that the number of the beast's name is shown, by the Greek reckoning, through the letters it contains.

8.6| And going on a little further, he says about the same matter: We, then, will not take the risk of declaring the name of the Antichrist with certainty. For if it had been necessary for his name to be proclaimed in the open at the present moment, it would have been said through the very man who had seen the Revelation. For it was not seen long ago, but nearly in our own generation, toward the end of Domitian's reign.

8.7| This is what the author named above records about the Revelation. He also mentions the first letter of John, bringing in very many testimonies from it, and likewise the first of Peter. He not only knows the writing called the Shepherd but also accepts it, saying: The scripture is right, then, which says: Before all else, believe that God is one, who created and fashioned everything, and so on.

8.8| He has also used certain sayings from the Wisdom of Solomon, almost quoting it directly: The vision of God brings about incorruption, and incorruption makes us be near to God. He also mentions the memoirs of a certain apostolic presbyter, the name of whom he has passed over in silence, and sets out his expositions of the divine scriptures.

8.9| He has furthermore made mention of Justin the martyr and of Ignatius, again using testimonies drawn from what these men wrote; and he himself promised to argue against Marcion from Marcion's own writings, in a work of its own.

8.10| And concerning the translation of the divinely inspired scriptures by the Seventy, hear what he writes in his own words: God, then, became man, and it was the Lord himself who saved us, by giving the sign of the virgin; yet it is not as some of those now daring to translate the scripture say: Behold, the young woman will conceive and bear a son. This is how Theodotion of Ephesus and Aquila of Pontus translated it, both of them Jewish proselytes, and the Ebionites, following them, claim that he was born of Joseph.

8.11| To this he adds, a little later: Before the Romans had established their rule, while the Macedonians still held Asia, Ptolemy son of Lagus, eager to adorn the library he had founded in Alexandria with all the writings of mankind that were of any worth, asked the people of Jerusalem to let him have their scriptures translated into Greek.

8.12| They, for they were still subject to the Macedonians at that time, sent to Ptolemy seventy elders from among themselves, the men most expert in the scriptures and in both languages, God bringing about just what he wished.

8.13| But he, wishing to test them privately, and fearing that they might have agreed together to conceal the truth in the scriptures through their translation, separated them from one another and ordered them all to write the same translation; and he did this for all the books.

8.14| When they assembled in one place before Ptolemy and each compared his own translation, God was glorified, and the scriptures were acknowledged to be truly divine, since all of them had rendered the same matters in identical phrases and identical words from start to finish, so that the nations then present also knew that the scriptures were rendered under the inspiration of God.

8.15| And it is no marvel that God accomplished this, since, when the scriptures had been destroyed during the captivity of the people under Nebuchadnezzar, and the Jews, after seventy years, had gone up to their own land, then in the times of Artaxerxes king of the Persians he inspired Ezra, the priest from the tribe of Levi, to restore all the words of the earlier prophets and to re-establish for the people the legislation given through Moses. So much from Irenaeus.

9.1| After Antoninus had held the imperial power for nineteen years, Commodus took over the rule. In the first year of his reign Julian was entrusted with the bishopric of the churches at Alexandria, Agrippinus having completed twelve years of service.

10.1| At that time the community of believers there was led by a man of the highest distinction in learning, named Pantaenus. A school of sacred learning had been established among them from ancient custom, and we have received the tradition that it continues down to our own day and is maintained by men who are powerful in discourse and zealous in divine matters. The man I have mentioned is said to have shone especially brightly in that period, since he had come to it from the philosophical training of the so-called Stoics.

10.2| They say that such a passionate eagerness for the divine Word took hold of him that he was appointed a herald of Christ's gospel to the nations of the East and set out as far as the country of the Indians. For there were still, there were even then, many evangelists of the Word, who took care to contribute a God-inspired zeal, in imitation of the apostles, for the growth and building up of the divine Word. Pantaenus was one of these, and he is said to have gone to India,

10.3| where the report is that he found that the Gospel according to Matthew had arrived before his own coming among some there who had come to know Christ. Bartholomew, one of the apostles, was said to have preached to them and to have left them Matthew's writing in Hebrew letters, which was preserved down to the time I have mentioned.

10.4| Pantaenus, after many successes, finally became head of the school at Alexandria, expounding the treasures of divine doctrines both by the living voice and in writings.

11.1| In his time Clement became known at Alexandria, where he was training himself in the divine Scriptures. He shared his name with the man who long ago led the church of the Romans and was a disciple of the apostles.

11.2| In the work he composed called the Outlines he mentions Pantaenus by name as his teacher, and I think he also alludes to him in the first book of the Miscellanies, where he marks out the more conspicuous men of the apostolic succession he had encountered and says the following:

11.3| Now this treatise is not a piece of writing contrived for display; rather, these notes are being stored up for my old age, a remedy for forgetfulness, simply an image and a sketch of those vivid and living words, and of those blessed and truly noteworthy men, whom I was thought worthy to hear.

11.4| Of these, one was in Greece, the Ionian; another, in Magna Graecia, was from Coele-Syria; another was from Egypt, others in the East, of whom one was of the Assyrians and another a Hebrew by origin in Palestine. I met the last, who was in power the first, and I found rest, having tracked him down hidden in Egypt.

11.5| These men preserved the true tradition of the blessed teaching, received directly from Peter, James, John and Paul, the holy apostles, son from father (though few are like their fathers), and by God's will they have come down even to us, to lay down those ancestral and apostolic seeds.

12.1| In their time the bishop of the church in Jerusalem was Narcissus, who is still celebrated among many today. He was the fifteenth in the succession dating from Hadrian's siege of the Jews, from which time, as we have pointed out, the church there was first composed of Gentiles after those from the circumcision, and Mark was the first bishop of Gentile origin to lead them.

12.2| The successions of that place record that Cassian held the bishopric after him; after Cassian, Publius; then Maximus; following these, Julian; then Gaius; next Symmachus; another Gaius; then yet another Julian; and then Capito, Valens, and Dolichianus; and last, after them all, Narcissus, who came to be thirtieth from the apostles in the sequence of succession.

13.1| At the same time Rhodo, an Asian by birth, who had been instructed at Rome, as he himself relates, by Tatian, whom we have come to know from the earlier account, composed various books, and among the rest drew up one against the heresy of Marcion. He relates that this heresy had split into differing opinions in his time, and he records those who caused the division and refutes in detail the falsehoods devised by each of them. Hear him, then, writing as follows:

13.2| For this reason they have become discordant among themselves, laying claim to an unstable opinion. For from their herd, Apelles, who prides himself on his conduct and his age, acknowledges one first principle, yet declares that the prophecies derive from an opposing spirit, being persuaded by the utterances of a possessed girl named Philumene.

13.3| Others, like the mariner Marcion himself, introduce two first principles; among them are Potitus and Basilicus.

13.4| These men followed the wolf of Pontus, and like him they could not find how the nature of things is divided, so they took the easy way out and declared two principles, bare assertion with no proof. Others in turn slid from them into something worse, and posit not merely two natures but three. Their founder and leader is Syneros, as those who put forward his school tell us.

13.5| The same writer reports that he also came into discussion with Apelles, saying this: "The old man Apelles, when he met with us, was refuted on many points, for he spoke badly. Hence he even said that one should not examine doctrine at all, but that each person should remain as he has believed. For he declared that those who have set their hope on the crucified one would be saved, provided only that they were found in good works. But the most obscure matter of all in his teaching, as we have said before, was the one concerning God. For he said there is one principle, just as our doctrine does.

13.6| Then, after setting out his whole opinion, he goes on: "When I said to him, 'Where does this proof of yours come from, or how can you maintain that there is one principle? Tell us,' he said that the prophecies refute themselves because they have said nothing true at all, for they are inconsistent, false, and contradictory to one another. As for how there is one principle, he said he did not know; he was simply moved to believe it so.

13.7| Then, when I adjured him to tell the truth, he swore he was speaking honestly when he said he did not understand how one unbegotten God exists, yet believed it. I laughed and condemned him, because though he called himself a teacher, he did not know how to make firm what he himself was teaching."

13.8| In the same work, which is addressed to Callistion, Rhodo confesses that he was a pupil of Tatian at Rome. He also says that Tatian had labored over a Book of Problems. Since Tatian promised by means of these to make plain what is obscure and hidden in the divine scriptures, Rhodo himself announces that he will set out, in a work of his own, the solutions to those problems of Tatian. A commentary by the same Rhodo on the Six Days of creation is also in circulation.

13.9| This Apelles, at any rate, committed countless impieties against the law of Moses, blaspheming, in a number of writings, the divine words, and taking no small pains, as he supposed, to refute and overturn them. So much, then, for these men.

14.1| But the enemy of God's church, who hates the good in the extreme and loves wickedness, and who left no manner of plotting against human beings untried, once again caused strange heresies to sprout up against the church. Of these, some crept like venomous reptiles through Asia and Phrygia, boasting of Montanus as the Paraclete, and of the women who followed him, Priscilla and Maximilla, as having become Montanus' prophetesses.

15.1| Others flourished at Rome. Their leader was Florinus, who had fallen away from the church's presbyterate, and Blastus with him, who was gripped by a similar fall. They drew many away from the church and brought them under their own purpose, one of the two trying to introduce his own novelties concerning the truth.

16.1| Against the so-called heresy of the Phrygians, then, the power that fights for the truth raised up a mighty and invincible weapon in Apolinarius of Hierapolis, whom my account has mentioned before, and with him many other learned men of that time, from whom a very large body of material for history has been left to us.

16.2| At the start of his writing against them, one of these men first notes that he had also set about refuting them with unwritten arguments. He opens in this way:

16.3| "For a very long and ample time, beloved Avircius Marcellus, I was bidden by you to write some treatise opposing the heresy of Miltiades's followers, as they are called, and until now I have been rather hesitant. It was not from any inability to refute the falsehood and bear witness to the truth. Rather, I feared and shrank from seeming to some to be adding to the word of the gospel's new covenant, or issuing orders over it, since no one who has resolved to live by the gospel itself can add to it or take away from it.

16.4| "Recently, however, I was at Ancyra in Galatia, and found the church there in that region full of talk about this new thing, which is not, as they claim, prophecy, but far more, as will be shown, false prophecy. So, as far as was possible with the Lord's help, we discussed these very matters and each of their propositions over several days in the church, with the result that the church was glad and was strengthened in the truth, while the opponents were for the moment repulsed and our adversaries were grieved."

16.5| When the presbyters of the district asked us to leave some written record of what was said against those who oppose the word of truth, and our fellow presbyter Zoticus of Otrous was present too, we did not do so; but we promised to write it here and, if the Lord permits, to send it to them with all haste.

16.6| After saying this, and other things following it at the beginning of his work, he goes on to relate the cause of the heresy in question in the following way: The resistance of these people, then, and their recent schismatic heresy against the church, arose from the following cause.

16.7| There is said to be a village in Phrygian Mysia called Ardabau. There, they say, a recent convert named Montanus, when Gratus was proconsul of Asia, first gave the adversary a way into himself through an immoderate longing of his soul for pre-eminence. He was filled with a spirit, and suddenly, in a kind of possession and ecstasy, he fell into frenzy and began to babble and speak strange sounds, prophesying, so he claimed, in a manner contrary to the church's custom handed down by tradition and succession from the beginning.

16.8| Of those who at that time heard these spurious utterances, some were annoyed, thinking him a man driven by a demon, possessed, in the grip of a spirit of error, and disturbing the crowds. They rebuked him and tried to stop him speaking, remembering the Lord's distinction and warning to be watchful against the coming of false prophets. Others, however, as if lifted up by a holy spirit and a prophetic gift, and not a little puffed up, forgot the Lord's distinction and invited in the mischievous, wheedling, people-deceiving spirit; charmed and misled by it, they no longer allowed it to be silenced.

16.9| By a certain craft, or rather by this method of evil craftsmanship, the devil, contriving the destruction of the disobedient and being honored by them beyond his due, stirred up and further inflamed their minds, which had already fallen asleep to the true faith, so that he roused two other women as well and filled them with the spurious spirit, so that they too spoke senselessly, out of season, and in alien fashion, like the man mentioned before. And the spirit called blessed those who rejoiced and swelled with pride in it, and puffed them up with the magnitude of its promises; sometimes, however, it even condemned them to their faces, with plausible and credible guesses, so as to seem a reprover as well. (These deceived Phrygians were few.) But this haughty spirit taught them to blaspheme the whole church under heaven,

16.10| because the spirit of false prophecy had received neither honor nor entry into it. For when the faithful of Asia met many times and in many places of Asia for this purpose, examined the recent utterances, declared them profane, and rejected the heresy, these people were then driven out of the church and shut out from communion.

16.11| Having related this first, and having carried out throughout the whole work his refutation of their error, in the second book he says the following about the end of those mentioned above:

16.12| Since they also called us prophet-killers, because we did not accept their prophets who speak without measure (for these, they say, are those whom the Lord promised to dispatch to the people), let them tell us, before God, whether any one of these people, my excellent friends, from those who began to speak with Montanus and the women, was persecuted by Jews or put to death by lawless men? None. Was any of them arrested for the Name and crucified? Certainly not. Was any of the women ever flogged, or stoned, in the Jews' synagogues?

16.13| Nowhere, not at all. Montanus and Maximilla are said to have met a different death. The story is that each was driven by the mischievous spirit to hang himself, not together, but at the time of each one's death, and there is much report that they ended and closed their lives in this way, in the manner of Judas the traitor,

16.14| just as common report also has it that Theodotus, that wonderful man, a kind of steward of their so-called prophecy, was once lifted up and taken into the heavens, fell out of his senses, entrusted himself to the spirit of deceit, was hurled down, and died miserably. At any rate, they say that this is how it happened.

16.15| But let us not suppose, blessed friend, that we know anything of such matters without having seen it. For perhaps Montanus and Theodotus and the woman mentioned earlier died in this way, and perhaps not.

16.16| Again, he says in that same work that the holy bishops of those days tried to refute the spirit that was in Maximilla, but were hindered by others, who were evidently cooperating with the spirit;

16.17| He writes thus: "Let not the spirit that speaks through Maximilla say, in the same treatise against Asterius Urbanus, 'I am driven off like a wolf from the sheep; I am no wolf; I am a word, and a spirit, and a power.' Rather, let it plainly demonstrate the power within the spirit; let it supply proof, and let it compel through the spirit to confess those who were present then to test and converse with the spirit as it spoke, men of proven worth and bishops, Zoticus from the village of Cumane and Julian from Apameia. Themiso and his circle muzzled their mouths and would not let the false spirit, the deceiver of the people, be exposed by them."

16.18| In the same work he says other things in between to refute the false prophecies of Maximilla, and at once he indicates the time at which he was writing this and recalls the predictions in which she foretold wars and disorders, and he convicts their falsehood, speaking thus:

16.19| "And how has this lie not already become plain? For to this very day more than thirteen years have passed since the woman's death, and no war has occurred, either partial or general, in the world; on the contrary, even for Christians there has been lasting peace, through the mercy of God."

16.20| These things are from the second treatise. From the third I shall set down a few short passages, in which he says the following to those who boast that more of their own number have been martyred: "So when they have been refuted on everything said above and are at a loss, they try to take refuge with the martyrs, claiming that many martyrs are theirs, and that this is a trustworthy proof of the power of what among them is called the prophetic spirit. But this, as it appears, is anything but true.

16.21| "For some of the other sects also have a great many martyrs, and surely we shall not, for that reason, agree with them or admit that they have the truth. And first, those who are called Marcionites, from the sect of Marcion, say that they have a great many martyrs of Christ, yet they do not truly confess Christ himself."

16.22| And after a few words he adds to these: "Hence, whenever any who have been summoned by the church to martyrdom on behalf of the true faith happen to meet some of the martyrs, so called, of the Phrygian sect, they part from them and die without having communion with them, because they are unwilling to assent to the spirit speaking through Montanus and the women. That this is true, and that it happened in our own times in Apameia on the Maeander, is evident from the case of those who were martyred with Gaius and Alexander of Eumeneia."

17.1| In this work he also mentions Miltiades as a writer, as one who likewise composed a discourse against the aforesaid sect. At any rate, he quotes some of their words and then adds: "I found these things in a certain writing of theirs, directed against the writing of Alcibiades our brother, in which he demonstrates that a prophet should not speak while in ecstasy; and I have abridged them."

17.2| Going further down in the same work, he catalogues those who had prophesied in the time of the new covenant, and among them he counts a certain Ammia and Quadratus, speaking thus: "But the false prophet speaks in a state of frenzy, which is accompanied by license and fearlessness. It begins in voluntary ignorance and ends in an involuntary madness of the soul, as was said before.

17.3| "But they will be unable to show that any prophet, either under the old covenant or under the new, was carried along by the Spirit in this manner, not Agabus, not Judas, not Silas, not the daughters of Philip, not Ammia of Philadelphia, not Quadratus, and none of the others whom they may boast of, though these have nothing to do with them."

17.4| And again, a little further on, he says this: "If after Quadratus and Ammia of Philadelphia, as they say, the women of Montanus' company took over the prophetic gift, let them point out which of their number took over from the followers of Montanus and the women. For the apostle thinks the prophetic gift should remain in every church until the perfect coming. But they would be unable to point to one, for this is already roughly the fourteenth year counting from Maximilla's death."

17.5| So much, then, from this writer. As for Miltiades, whom he mentioned, he has left us other memorials of his own devotion to the divine oracles, both in the discourses he wrote against the Greeks and in the ones directed at the Jews; he answered each subject separately in two treatises. Furthermore, he made a defense, on behalf of the philosophy which he pursued, to the secular rulers.

18.1| Apollonius, a writer of the church, also mounted a refutation of the so-called heresy of the Phrygians, which was then still flourishing in Phrygia, and produced a separate treatise against them. In it he examines their circulating prophecies one by one and shows them to be false, and he exposes what kind of life the founders of the heresy led. Hear what he says about Montanus in his own words:

18.2| "But who this newly arrived teacher is, his works and his teaching make plain. This is the man who taught the dissolving of marriages, who legislated fasts, who named Pepuza and Tymion Jerusalem (these are small towns of Phrygia), wishing to gather people there from everywhere, who set up collectors of money, who contrived the taking of gifts under the name of offerings, and who provided salaries to those who preach his message, so that the teaching of the message might gain strength through gluttony."

18.3| So much for Montanus. Then, moving further on, he writes as follows about his prophetesses: "We show, then, that these very prophetesses were the first to leave their husbands once they were filled with the spirit. How, then, did they lie in calling Priscilla a virgin?"

18.4| Next he adds: "Does it seem to you that all of scripture forbids a prophet to accept gifts and money? When, then, I see the prophetess has received gold and silver and expensive clothing, how am I not to reject her?"

18.5| Again, moving further on, he says this about one of their confessors: "Moreover Themiso too, who is clothed in a plausible greed, who did not bear the mark of confession but laid aside his chains with a large sum of money, and who ought to have been humble because of this, boasted as a martyr and dared, imitating the apostle, to compose a kind of catholic letter, to teach those who believed better than he did, to take part in the contest of empty-voiced arguments, and to utter blasphemy against the Lord, against the apostles, and against the holy church."

18.6| And about another of those honored among them as supposed martyrs he writes again as follows: "But to avoid speaking about many, let the prophetess tell us the facts about Alexander, who says he is a martyr, with whom she feasts, and whom many even worship. His robberies and the other crimes for which he has been punished, we need not tell; the record office holds them. Who, then, forgives whose sins?

18.7| Does the prophet pardon the martyr's robberies, or the martyr the prophet's acts of greed? For although the Lord said, 'Do not acquire gold or silver or two tunics,' these people have done the complete opposite in transgressing over the acquisition of these forbidden things. We shall show, in fact, that those who among them are called prophets and martyrs collect their small change not only from the wealthy but also from the poor, orphans and widows.

18.8| And if they have confidence, let them stand their ground on this and make a formal agreement on these terms, so that, if they are refuted, they may at least cease their wrongdoing in future. The fruits of the prophet must be put to the test;

18.9| for a tree is known by its fruit. And so that those who wish may know the facts about Alexander: he was judged by Aemilius Frontinus, the proconsul in Ephesus, not for the Name's sake, but because of the acts of robbery he had dared to commit, being already a transgressor. Then, having falsely invoked the Lord's name, he was released, after deceiving the faithful there; and his own community, the place he came from, would not take him in, since he was a robber. Anyone who wants to learn about him has the public archive of Asia. Yet the prophet has failed to recognize him, although he has been with him for many years.

18.10| In exposing him, we expose through him also the subsistence of the prophet. We can demonstrate the same in the case of many others, and if they are bold, let them submit to the test.

18.11| And once more, in another part of the treatise, he adds this about the prophets they boast of: "If they deny that their prophets accepted gifts, let them grant this: that should they be shown to have accepted them, they are no prophets, and ten thousand proofs of it we will bring forward. But all the fruits of a prophet must be tested. Tell me, does a prophet tint his hair? Does a prophet use paint on his eyelids? Does a prophet love finery? Does a prophet play at board games and dice? Does a prophet lend at interest? Let them admit whether these things are permitted or not; I will show that they have happened among them."

18.12| This same Apollonius relates in the same treatise that it was the fortieth year, at the time he was writing his treatise, since Montanus had set about his pretended prophecy; and again he says that Zoticus,

18.13| The earlier writer also mentioned this man. When Maximilla was supposedly prophesying in Pepouza, he came to challenge the spirit working in her and tried to put it to the test, but he was prevented by those who shared her views. He also mentions a certain Thraseas, one of the martyrs of that time.

18.14| He further says, as from tradition, that the Savior commanded his apostles not to leave Jerusalem for twelve years. He also uses testimonies from John's Apocalypse, and he reports that a dead man was raised at Ephesus by John himself through divine power, and he says some other things, by which he corrected the error of the aforesaid heresy fully and thoroughly. This is what Apollonius says.

19.1| The writings of Apolinarius against the heresy just described are mentioned by Serapion, who, the account holds, became bishop of the church of the Antiochenes after Maximinus in the period in question. He mentions him in a personal letter to Caricus and Pontius, wherein he too sets right the same heresy, and he adds the following:

19.2| So that you may also know this, that the working of this false order, called the new prophecy, is abhorred by the entire brotherhood everywhere in the world, I have sent you also the letters of Claudius Apolinarius, who was the most blessed bishop of Hierapolis in Asia.

19.3| In this letter of Serapion there are also subscriptions by various bishops. One of them is subscribed something like this: "I, Aurelius Cyrenius, martyr, pray that you are well." Another in this manner: "I, Aelius Publius Julius, bishop from the colony of Debeltus in Thrace: as God who is in the heavens lives, the blessed Sotas in Anchialus wished to drive out the demon of Priscilla, and the hypocrites would not allow it."

19.4| Signatures in their own hand also survive in the letters mentioned, from several other bishops who agreed with these. So much for the affairs concerning these men.

20.1| Against those at Rome who were corrupting the sound ordinance of the church, Irenaeus composed various letters. One of them he titled To Blastus, On Schism; a second was addressed to Florinus, On Monarchy, or On God's Not Being the Maker of Evils. For Florinus appeared to be defending this opinion. Because Florinus was again being dragged away by the error of Valentinus, Irenaeus also composed the work On the Ogdoad, a labor of his in which he also indicates that he himself had reached the first succession from the apostles.

20.2| There, near the end of the work, we came upon a most charming note of his, and we must set it down in this writing too, since it has this form: "I adjure you who are to copy this book, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through his glorious coming, at which he comes to judge both the living and the dead, that you compare what you have copied and to correct it carefully against this exemplar from which you copied; and you shall copy this oath likewise and place it in the copy."

20.3| Let these words, spoken by him to good purpose, be recorded by us as well, so that we may have in those ancient and truly holy men an excellent example of the most earnest care.

20.4| In the letter to Florinus that we mentioned above, Irenaeus again recalls his association with Polycarp, saying: "These teachings, Florinus, to put it mildly, are not of a sound mind. These teachings are out of harmony with the church and plunge those who believe them into the greatest impiety. Even the heretics outside the church never dared to proclaim these teachings. These teachings the presbyters before us, who also studied alongside the apostles, did not hand down to you.

20.5| For I saw you when I was still a boy in lower Asia, with Polycarp, as you were faring splendidly in the imperial court and trying to win his esteem. For I remember the events of that time better than recent ones

20.6| (for lessons learned from childhood grow together with the soul and become one with it), so that I can describe even the place where the blessed Polycarp sat when he talked, and his comings and goings, and the character of his life, and his bodily appearance, and the discourses he gave to the crowd, and how he reported his dealings with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and how he recalled their words, and what the things were that he had heard from them about the Lord, and about his miracles, and about his teaching, how Polycarp, having received them from eyewitnesses of the life of the Word, reported everything in agreement with the Scriptures."

20.7| I listened eagerly to these things even then, by the mercy God showed me, and I wrote them down not on paper but on my heart; and by God's grace I still chew them over faithfully, and I can bear witness before God that, had that blessed apostolic elder heard anything of this kind, he would have cried out, stopped his ears, saying, as was his custom, "Good God, for what times have you kept me, that I should endure this!" and he would have fled even from the place where he sat or stood when he heard such words.

20.8| This can also be made clear from the letters he sent, whether to the neighboring churches to strengthen them, or to some of the brothers to admonish and encourage them. So far Irenaeus.

21.1| In the same period, during the reign of Commodus, our affairs changed to a gentler state, for by God's grace peace embraced the churches all over the world. At that time the saving word was drawing souls of every kind of person to the pious worship of the God of the universe, with the result that by now many in Rome too, men conspicuous for wealth and family, were turning with their whole households and entire clans to their own salvation.

21.2| But this was unbearable to the demon who hates what is good and is envious by nature, and so he stripped for the contest again, devising manifold schemes against us. In the city of the Romans, at any rate, he brought Apollonius, a believer of that time famed for education and philosophy, before a court, having stirred up one of the servants suited to such work to accuse the man.

21.3| But the wretch had brought his suit at the wrong time, since under an imperial decree it was not permitted for informers against people of this kind to live, and he immediately had his legs broken, the judge Perennius having passed that sentence on him.

21.4| The most God-beloved martyr, however, was earnestly entreated by the judge at length, who asked him to give an account before the senate; before them all he delivered a most eloquent defense on behalf of the faith for which he was bearing witness, and he was put to death by beheading, as if by decree of the senate, since an ancient law held among them that those who had once come into court and in no way changed their purpose were not to be released in any other way.

21.5| Anyone who wishes to know the words he spoke before the judge, the replies he made to Perennius' questioning, and the whole of his defense before the senate, will learn them from the record of the ancient martyrs that we have collected.

22.1| In the tenth year of Commodus' reign, Victor succeeded Eleutherus, who had served as bishop for thirteen years. In that year, Julian having completed his tenth year, Demetrius was given charge of the ministry of the communities in Alexandria. In their time Serapion, already mentioned, was still known as bishop of the Antiochene church, the eighth from the apostles. Theophilus presided over Caesarea in Palestine, and Narcissus likewise, whom our account mentioned earlier, still held the ministry of the church in Jerusalem; at Corinth in Greece at the same time the bishop was Bacchylus, and of the community at Ephesus, Polycrates. And countless others besides, as one would expect, were distinguished in these times; but those whose written statement of the orthodox faith has come down to us we have fittingly listed by name.

23.1| A dispute of no small size was then stirred up, because the communities throughout all Asia, as from a more ancient tradition, thought they must observe the fourteenth day of the moon for the feast of the Savior's Passover, the day on which the Jews had been commanded to sacrifice the lamb, so that they must by all means end their fasts on that day, whichever day of the week it happened to fall. The churches throughout the rest of the whole world, however, were not accustomed to do it this way, but kept the custom that has prevailed down to the present from apostolic tradition, that it is not proper to end the fasts on any day other than the day of the resurrection of our Savior.

23.2| Synods and gatherings of bishops accordingly met on the matter, and all with one mind set down in letters an ecclesiastical decree for people everywhere: that the mystery of the Lord's rising from the dead should be celebrated on no day but the Lord's day, and that only on this day should we observe the release from the Passover fasts.

23.3| A written statement is still in circulation today from those who were convened at that time in Palestine, who were presided over by Theophilus, bishop of the diocese in Caesarea, and Narcissus, bishop of the one in Jerusalem; likewise another on the same question from those at Rome, which names Victor as bishop; also one from the bishops of Pontus, over whom Palmas presided as the eldest, and one from the dioceses of Gaul, which Irenaeus oversaw,

23.4| and further from the people of Osrhoene and the cities there, and one from Bacchylus in particular, bishop of the Corinthian church, and from very many others, who put forward a single opinion and judgment, casting the same vote.

24.1| These, then, had the one definition just described. But the bishops of Asia, insisting that they must keep the custom handed down to them from of old, were led by Polycrates. He himself, in the letter he drew up for Victor and the Roman church, sets out the tradition that had come down to him, in these words:

24.2| "We, then, keep the day without tampering, neither adding anything nor removing anything. For in Asia, too, great luminaries have fallen asleep, who will rise on the day of the Lord's return, when he comes with glory from heaven and will seek out all the saints: Philip, who was one of the twelve apostles and has fallen asleep in Hierapolis, together with his two daughters who grew old as virgins, while his other daughter, who lived her life in the Holy Spirit, rests in Ephesus;

24.3| and further John, who leaned back on the breast of the Lord, who became a priest wearing the plate, and a witness and teacher.

24.4| He has fallen asleep in Ephesus. And further Polycarp in Smyrna, bishop and martyr alike; then Thraseas, from Eumeneia, bishop and martyr as well, who has fallen asleep in Smyrna. Why should I mention Sagaris, a bishop and martyr,

24.5| who has fallen asleep in Laodicea, and further blessed Papirius, and Melito the eunuch, who lived his whole life in the Holy Spirit and lies in Sardis, waiting for the visitation from the heavens at which he will rise from the dead?

24.6| All these observed the day of the fourteenth of the Passover in line with the gospel, departing from it in no way, but following the canon of the faith. And I too, Polycrates, the least of you all, keep it following the tradition handed down by my kinsmen, some of whom I have closely followed. Seven of my kinsmen were bishops, with myself the eighth; and my kinsmen always celebrated the day on which the people removed the leaven.

24.7| So I, brothers, being sixty-five years old in the Lord, and having met with the brothers from all over the world and gone through all of holy scripture, am not frightened by those who try to intimidate us. For my betters have said, 'It is God one must obey rather than men.'"

24.8| To this he adds, speaking of the bishops who were present with him as he wrote and shared his opinion: "I could mention the bishops who are present, whom you asked me to summon, and I summoned them. If I wrote down their names, they would be great multitudes. Yet they, knowing my small humanity, agreed to the letter, knowing that I have not borne grey hairs in vain, but have always lived my life in Christ Jesus."

24.9| Upon this, Victor, who presided over the Romans, attempts to cut off at one stroke the dioceses of all Asia, together with the neighboring churches, from the common unity, as holding heterodox views; and he publishes a denunciation in letters, proclaiming all the brothers there utterly excommunicated.

24.10| Yet this was not pleasing to all the bishops. They in turn urged him to think on the things of peace, and of unity and love toward their neighbors; and their words too are preserved, rather sharply rebuking Victor.

24.11| Among these is Irenaeus, who, writing in the name of the brothers he led in Gaul, maintains that the mystery of the Lord's resurrection must be celebrated only on the Lord's day, yet appropriately urges Victor, in many other words, not to sever entire churches of God for observing a tradition of ancient custom, and adds these words verbatim:

24.12| "For the dispute is not only about the day, but also about the manner of the fast itself. Some think they should fast for one day, others for two, others for more; and some reckon their day as forty hours, day and night together.

24.13| Such was the variety among those who observed the day, and it arose not now in our time but long before, among those before us, who, as is likely, held to a custom of simplicity and plain practice that departed from strict precision and handed it on to later generations. Nonetheless all of these were at peace, and we too are at peace with each other, and the disagreement over the fast confirms the harmony of the faith.

24.14| To this he adds an account, which I shall quote as fitting, and which runs as follows: Among these were also the presbyters preceding Soter, who headed the church you now govern, I mean Anicetus, Pius, Hyginus, Telesphorus and Xystus. They neither observed the day themselves nor allowed their successors to; still, though they did not observe it, they kept peace with those coming to them from the communities in which it was observed, even though observing it was more offensive to those who did not.

24.15| Never was anyone cast out because of this practice; rather, the elders before you, though they did not observe it themselves, sent the Eucharist to those from the communities who did,

24.16| and when the blessed Polycarp was staying in Rome in the time of Anicetus, they had minor differences over some other matters, but made peace at once, and did not quarrel with one another over this main point. For Anicetus could not persuade Polycarp not to observe the day, because he had always kept it together with John, our Lord's disciple, and with the rest of the apostles among whom he had lived; nor did Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it, since Anicetus said he was bound to keep the custom of the presbyters before him.

24.17| This being how matters stood, they held communion together, and in the church Anicetus gave place to Polycarp for the Eucharist, plainly out of respect, and they parted from one another in peace, the whole church being at peace, both those who observed the day and those who did not.

24.18| So Irenaeus, who lived up to his name, being a peacemaker in his name and in his manner, made such exhortations and pleas for the sake of the peace of the churches. He also corresponded about the question that had been stirred up, in suitable terms, not only with Victor but with a great many other leaders of churches.

25.1| The bishops in Palestine, whom we have just discussed, Narcissus and Theophilus, together with Cassius, who was bishop at Tyre, and Clarus, of the church in Ptolemais, and with those who had assembled with them, having dealt very fully with the Easter tradition which reached them by succession from the apostles, add these words near the close of their writing: Try to send copies of our letter around to every community, so that we may not be guilty before those who readily lead their own souls astray. We inform you that in Alexandria they keep the holy day on the same day as we do; for letters travel from us to them, and back from them to us, with the result that we keep the holy day in harmony and together.

26.1| But besides the writings of Irenaeus already given, and his letters, there is also in circulation a very brief and most necessary discourse of his addressed to the Greeks, entitled On Knowledge; another, which he dedicated to a brother named Marcian, as a demonstration of the apostolic preaching; and a book of various discussions, in which he refers to the Epistle to the Hebrews as well as the book called Wisdom of Solomon, quoting certain passages from them. That is the extent of Irenaeus' works that have come to our knowledge. When Commodus had ended his reign after thirteen years, the emperor Severus took power, less than six whole months after the death of Commodus, with Pertinax having intervened.

27.1| Very many writings of earnest and virtuous effort by the churchmen and ancients of that time are still preserved today among many people. Of those that we ourselves have come to know, there are the works of Heraclitus on the Apostle; those of Maximus on the much-debated question among the heretics, where evil comes from, and on the point that matter was created; those of Candidus on the six days of creation, and Apion's on the same subject; likewise Sextus on the resurrection, and another treatise by Arabianus, and works by countless others, for whom, since we have no basis to go on, it is impossible either to set down the dates in writing or to indicate any historical record. Discourses of very many others have also reached us, whose names we cannot even list; they are orthodox and churchly, as the interpretation of divine scripture in each of them shows, but they are nonetheless unknown to us, because they do not carry the name of their authors.

28.1| In one of their works, a labor directed against the heresy of Artemon, one that Paul of Samosata has tried to revive in our own day, there is preserved an account that bears on the history we are examining.

28.2| The writer is correcting the heresy just mentioned, which claims that the Savior was a mere man and which was only recently invented, since its promoters wanted to dignify it as ancient. Besides much else that he sets out to refute its blasphemous falsehood, he relates the following, in these exact words:

28.3| They say that all the earlier teachers, and the apostles themselves, received and taught what these men are saying now, and that the truth of the proclamation was kept safe until the times of Victor, the thirteenth bishop in Rome from Peter; but that with his successor Zephyrinus the truth was falsified.

28.4| What they say might perhaps be plausible, had the divine Scriptures not stood against them first of all. There are also writings of certain brothers dating from before Victor's time, which they composed against the Gentiles in defense of the truth and against the heresies of their day. I mean those of Justin, Miltiades, Tatian, Clement, and many others; in every one of them Christ is set forth as God.

28.5| For who is ignorant of the books of Irenaeus and Melito and the rest, which proclaim Christ as God and man?

28.6| And all the psalms and songs written by faithful brothers from the beginning hymn Christ, the Word of God, declaring him to be God. Since the church's way of thinking has been proclaimed for so many years, how can it be that those before Victor preached as these men claim? How are they not ashamed to lie about Victor in this way, when they know exactly that Victor excommunicated Theodotus the cobbler, who headed this God-denying apostasy and was its father, the first to say that Christ was nothing more than a man? For if Victor, as they claim, held the views that their blasphemy teaches, how did he expel Theodotus, the originator of this heresy?

28.7| So much for the affairs of Victor. When he had held charge of the ministry for ten years, Zephyrinus was installed as his successor, about the ninth year of Severus's reign. The writer of the book mentioned above, on the founder of the heresy described, adds another event that took place in the time of Zephyrinus, writing in these very words:

28.8| I will remind many of the brothers of something that happened in our time, which I think would perhaps have brought even the people of Sodom to their senses had it happened among them. A certain confessor, Natalius, belonged not to the distant past but to our own times.

28.9| He was once deceived by Asclepiodotus, and by another Theodotus, a banker; these two were disciples of Theodotus the cobbler, the first to be cut off from communion, as I said, by Victor, the bishop of the time, for this way of thinking, or rather this folly.

28.10| Natalius was persuaded by them to let himself be called bishop of this heresy for a salary, receiving from them 150 denarii each month.

28.11| While he was with them, he was repeatedly warned in visions by the Lord. For Jesus Christ, our compassionate God and Lord, did not wish a witness of his own sufferings to perish outside the church.

28.12| But he paid rather careless attention to the visions, tempted by the seat of honor among them and by the shameful greed that destroys so many. At last he was scourged by holy angels throughout the whole night and was tormented not lightly. So at dawn he rose, put on sackcloth, scattered ashes over himself, and with great haste and tears fell down before Bishop Zephyrinus, rolling at the feet not of the clergy alone but also of the laity. He moved to tears the tender-hearted church of Christ the merciful, and with much pleading and by showing the welts of the blows he had received, he was with difficulty readmitted to communion.

28.13| To these words we will add other statements of the same writer on the same people, which run as follows. They have fearlessly tampered with the divine Scriptures, they have put aside the rule of the ancient faith, and they have not known Christ. They do not look for what the divine Scriptures say, but labor diligently to find what form of syllogism might be devised to establish their godlessness. And if someone puts before them a saying of divine Scripture, they examine whether it can be made into a conjunctive or a disjunctive form of syllogism.

28.14| Abandoning the holy Scriptures of God, they devote themselves to geometry, as people who are of the earth, speak from the earth, and do not know the one who comes from above. Some of them, at any rate, laboriously study the geometry of Euclid, while Aristotle and Theophrastus are admired, while Galen, perhaps, is even worshiped by some.

28.15| As for those who misuse the arts of unbelievers, and the knavery of the godless, to support the opinion of their heresy, why must one even say that they are nowhere near the faith? That is why they have laid their hands on the divine Scriptures without fear, claiming that they have corrected them.

28.16| That I am not slandering them in saying this, anyone who wishes can learn. For if someone will take the trouble to collect the copies belonging to each of them and examine them against one another, he would find them disagreeing at many points. The copies of Asclepiades, at any rate, will not agree with those of Theodotus,

28.17| and many of these are obtainable, since their disciples have zealously written out what each of them has "corrected," as they call it, which is to say, defaced. Again, the copies of Hermophilus fail to agree with these. As for those of Apolloniades, they do not even agree with themselves; for one can compare the copies they prepared earlier with those they later perverted further, and find them disagreeing at many points.

28.18| How great an audacity this offense is, they themselves can hardly be unaware. For either they disbelieve that the Holy Spirit spoke the divine Scriptures, and so are faithless; or they regard themselves as wiser than the Holy Spirit, and what else are they but possessed by demons? Nor can they deny that the audacious deed is their own, since the copies are written in their own hand, and they did not receive such Scriptures from those who instructed them in the faith, nor can they produce originals from which they made their transcriptions.

28.19| Some of them have not even thought it worth the trouble to falsify the Scriptures, but have simply rejected both the law and the prophets, and so, under the pretext of grace, with a lawless and godless teaching, have slid down into the utmost depth of destruction. Let this, then, be our account of these matters.

Cite a passage by its number: every paragraph here has its own anchor (for example https://openscriptorium.com/read/eusebius/005-ecclesiastical-history-book-v#p1), and the bracketed reference numbers link the same way.

← All of Eusebius of Caesarea: The Works of Eusebius of Caesarea