Ecclesiastical History — Book VII

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

arg| The seventh book of the Ecclesiastical History has these contents: 1. On the depravity of Decius and Gallus. 2. The Roman bishops of their time. 3. How Cyprian, together with the bishops of his region, was the first to teach that those returning from heretical error must be cleansed by the bath of baptism. 4. The number of letters Dionysius wrote on this subject. 5. On the peace that followed the persecution. 6. Concerning the heresy of Sabellius. 7. On the utterly abominable error of the heretics, on the God-sent vision of Dionysius, and on the church's rule that he had received. 8. Concerning the heterodoxy of Novatus. 9. The godless baptism of the heretics. 10. Valerian, and the persecution under him. 11. On what befell Dionysius and those in Egypt at that time. 12. On those who suffered martyrdom at Caesarea in Palestine. 13. Concerning the peace under Gallienus. 14. The bishops who were prominent at that time. 15. How Marinus suffered martyrdom at Caesarea. 16. The account of Astyrius. 17. Concerning the signs at Paneas of our Savior's mighty working. 18. The throne of James. 19. Concerning the festal letters of Dionysius, in which he also lays down a rule about the Pascha. 20. On what happened at Alexandria. 21. On the disease that struck. 22. Concerning the reign of Gallienus. 23. On Nepos and the schism he caused. 24. On the Revelation of John. 25. Concerning the letters of Dionysius. 26. Concerning Paul of Samosata and the heresy he established at Antioch. 27. Concerning the distinguished bishops famous at that time. 28. The refutation and expulsion of Paul. 29. On the heterodox perversion of the Manichaeans, which had only then begun. 30. On the churchmen who were eminent in our own time, and which of them lived on until the siege of the churches.

praef.1| Once again the great bishop of the Alexandrians, Dionysius, will labor with us in his own words on the seventh book of the Ecclesiastical History, recounting each of the events of his time in turn through the letters left behind by him. From that point my account will take its beginning.

1.1| Decius had not held power for even two full years when he was butchered, together with his sons, and Gallus took over from him. At that time Origen died, having completed his sixty-ninth year of life. Dionysius, writing to Hermammon, says this about Gallus: "But Gallus did not recognize the evil of Decius, nor did he look ahead to what had brought that man down. He stumbled on the same stone, although it lay right before his eyes. When his reign was going well and his affairs were proceeding as he wished, he drove away the holy men who interceded with God for his peace and his health. And so, along with them, he banished the prayers offered on his own behalf."

2.1| So much, then, for him. In the city of Rome, Cornelius completed about three years as bishop, and Lucius was appointed his successor. Lucius served in the ministry for not even eight full months and, at his death, handed on the office to Stephen. It was to Stephen that Dionysius addressed the first of his letters on baptism, since a question of no small importance had been raised at that time: whether those returning from any heresy whatever ought to be cleansed by the bath of baptism. An ancient custom had in fact prevailed in such cases of using prayer alone, with the laying on of hands.

3.1| Cyprian, who was shepherd of the Carthage community, was the first of the men of that time to hold that such people should not be received in any other way than by first being cleansed of their error through the bath of baptism. But Stephen, believing that no innovation should be introduced against the tradition that had held sway from the beginning, was deeply indignant at this.

4.1| Dionysius, then, after conversing with him at great length on this subject by letter, finally shows that, now that the persecution had abated, the churches in every place had turned away from the innovation of Novatus and had recovered peace among themselves. He writes as follows:

5.1| "Know now, brother, that all the churches that were formerly divided, throughout the East and still farther beyond, have been united, and all who preside over them everywhere are of one mind, rejoicing beyond measure at the peace that has come about against all expectation: Demetrian in Antioch, Theoctistus in Caesarea, Mazabanes in Aelia, Marinus in Tyre since Alexander has fallen asleep, Heliodorus in Laodicea since Thelymidrus has gone to his rest, Helenus in Tarsus, with all the churches of Cilicia, and Firmilian with all Cappadocia. I have mentioned only the more prominent of the bishops, so as not to add length to my letter or weight to my words."

5.2| All of Syria, however, and Arabia, which you assist on every occasion and to which you have now written, and Mesopotamia, Pontus and Bithynia, and, in short, everyone everywhere rejoices in concord and brotherly love, giving glory to God.

5.3| So far Dionysius. Stephen completed his ministry after two years, and Xystus succeeded him. To this Xystus Dionysius wrote a second letter on baptism, setting out at once the opinion and judgment of Stephen and of the other bishops, and he says the following about Stephen:

5.4| "Stephen had previously written about Helenus and Firmilian and about everyone from Cilicia and Cappadocia, and evidently Galatia and all the neighboring nations next to them, saying that he would not be in communion with them either, for this very reason, because, he says, they rebaptize heretics.

5.5| Consider the gravity of the matter. For decrees have in fact been made about it in the largest councils of bishops, as I learn, that persons coming over from heresies are first instructed, and then washed and purified of the filth of the old, unclean leaven. And I wrote to him, begging him about all these things.

5.6| And after other remarks he says: "To Dionysius and Philemon, our beloved fellow presbyters, who had formerly agreed with Stephen and were writing to me about the same matters, I wrote earlier briefly, and now at greater length." But this is enough about the question under discussion.

6.1| In the same letter he also indicates that the heretics who followed Sabellius were then prevalent, and says this: "Concerning the doctrine now stirred up in Ptolemais of the Pentapolis, which is impious and contains much blasphemy about almighty God, the Father of Jesus Christ our Lord, and much unbelief about his Son, the only-begotten, the firstborn of all creation, the Word made man, and insensibility toward the Holy Spirit, documents came to me from both sides, and brothers arrived to discuss it. I therefore wrote some letters, as far as I was able, with God's help, setting out the teaching in a more instructive manner, and I have sent you copies of them."

7.1| In the third of his letters on baptism, which the same Dionysius writes to Philemon, the presbyter at Rome, he sets down the following: "I myself have read the treatises and the traditions of the heretics, defiling my soul for a short time with their thoroughly polluted notions, yet drawing from them this benefit, that I refute them in my own mind and loathe them far more.

7.2| And when one of the brother presbyters tried to hold me back and frightened me against mixing myself up in the mire of their wickedness, since it would ruin my own soul, and he spoke the truth, as I perceived, a vision sent from God came to me and strengthened me,

7.3| and a word that came to me gave the command, saying plainly: 'Read everything that comes into your hands, for you are able to set each matter straight and to test it, and this very ability from the beginning was the cause of your faith.' I accepted the vision, since it agrees with the apostolic saying addressed to the more capable: 'Be approved money-changers.'"

7.4| Then, after saying something about all the heresies, he continues: "This rule and pattern I received from our blessed pope Heraclas. Those who came over from the heresies, though they had left the church, or rather had not even left it but were thought to attend its gatherings while being reported as frequenting one of the teachers of other doctrines, he drove out of the church, and when they begged he would not receive them until they had publicly declared everything they had heard from their opponents. Then he admitted them, and did not require another baptism of them, for they had earlier received the holy baptism from him."

7.5| Again, after discussing the problem at length, he adds: "I have learned this too, that the people in Africa did not introduce this practice only now, but that long ago, under the bishops who preceded us, in the most populous churches and in the synods of the brothers, at Iconium and Synnada and among many others, this was decided. I cannot bring myself to overturn their counsels and cast them into strife and contention. For 'you shall not move the boundaries of your neighbor,' it says, 'which your fathers set.'"

7.6| His fourth letter on baptism went to Dionysius of Rome, who then held the rank of presbyter but not long afterward received the episcopate of that city. From it one can learn how this man, too, was attested by Dionysius of Alexandria as learned and admirable. After other remarks he writes to him, mentioning the followers of Novatus, in these words:

8.1| Novatian we rightly loathe, for he split the church, drew certain of the brethren into impiety and blasphemy, introduced a most unholy teaching about God, and slandered our most gracious Lord Jesus Christ as merciless. On top of all this he sets aside the holy washing, overturns the faith and confession that came before him, and drives the Holy Spirit entirely out of them, even if there was any hope that it would remain with them or return to them.

9.1| His fifth letter went to Xystus, bishop of the Romans; and in this one, after saying much against the heretics, he sets out an incident that occurred in his own time, saying: Truly, brother, I both need advice and ask for your judgment, since a matter of this kind has come to me, and I fear that I may be mistaken.

9.2| One of the brethren who assemble, thought to be a believer, who had belonged to the congregation from long ago, before my ordination and, I think, even before the blessed Heraclas was appointed, was present when some people were recently baptized and heard the questions and the answers. He came to me weeping and lamenting himself, and fell before my feet. He admitted and swore that the baptism he had received among the heretics was not this baptism and had nothing at all in common with it, for that one was full of impiety and blasphemies,

9.3| and he declared that his soul was by now utterly pierced, that he had no confidence even to lift his eyes to God, since he had set out from those unholy words and deeds, and that for this reason he begged to obtain this wholly pure cleansing, reception, and grace.

9.4| This I did not dare to do. I told him that his long communion with us was sufficient for this. For a man who has listened to the thanksgiving and uttered the Amen along with it, who has stood at the table, stretched out his hands to receive the holy food, accepted it, and for a considerable time shared in the body and blood of our Lord, I would not dare to set back at the beginning again. I bade him instead take courage and come to the participation in the holy things with steadfast faith and good hope.

9.5| But he does not stop grieving, he shudders to approach the table, and even when urged he can barely bear to stand with us at the prayers.

9.6| In addition to those already mentioned, another letter of the same man on baptism is in circulation, addressed to Xystus and the church at Rome by him and the diocese he led. In it he extends his discussion of the question at hand through a long demonstration. After this another of his letters circulates, addressed to Dionysius at Rome, the one concerning Lucian. So much for these.

10.1| As for Gallus and his men, they held power for not even two full years before they were removed from the scene, and Valerian together with his son Gallienus succeeded to the rule.

10.2| What Dionysius goes through about this emperor as well can again be learned from the letter to Hermammon, in which he relates it in this way: And it is revealed likewise to John: And there was given to him, it says, a mouth that spoke great things and blasphemy, and authority was granted him, and forty-two months.

10.3| Both things are to be marvelled at in Valerian's case, and above all the first of them, how it was; consider how gentle and kindly he was toward the people of God. For no other of the emperors before him was so favorably and graciously disposed toward them, not even those said to have become openly Christians, as he was, who plainly welcomed them in the beginning in the most familiar and affectionate manner, and his whole household was filled with God-fearing people and was a church of God.

10.4| But the teacher and synagogue-leader of the magicians from Egypt persuaded him to get rid of them. He ordered that pure and holy men be killed and driven out as adversaries and hinderers of the utterly defiled and abominable sorcerers (for they are, and were, able, merely by their presence and being seen, and by simply breathing and speaking, to scatter the plots of the accursed demons). And he urged the emperor to perform unclean rites, accursed enchantments, and unpropitious sacrifices: to slaughter wretched boys, to offer up the children of unfortunate fathers, to cut open newborn entrails, and to hack apart and butcher the creatures of God, as though they would prosper from these things.

10.5| To this he adds: Macrianus, at any rate, offered them fine thanksgiving for the imperial power he hoped for. He was once said to be over the universal accounts of the emperor, yet he thought nothing reasonable or universal, but fell under the prophetic curse that says: Woe to those who prophesy out of their own heart, and do not look upon the universal.

10.6| For he did not grasp the providence that governs all things, nor did he foresee the judgment of the One who is before all, through all, and over all. For this reason he became a foe of His catholic church, estranged and alienated himself from the mercy of God, and drove himself into exile far from his own salvation, thereby proving true to his own name.

10.7| And again, after other remarks, he says: Valerian, led on to these acts by this man, was given up to outrage and reproach, as was said to Isaiah: "These too selected their ways and their abominations, which their soul desired; and I will choose their mockeries, and repay them for their sins."

10.8| But this man, madly bent on the throne beyond his worth, and unable to put on the royal dress with his crippled body, set up his two sons, who took on their father's sins. For in them the prediction God made is plain: "Repaying the sins of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me."

10.9| For by laying his own wicked desires, in which he had failed, on the heads of his sons, he wiped off onto them his own wickedness and his hatred toward God. So much, then, Dionysius says about Valerian.

11.1| As for the persecution in his time, which blew with the greatest violence, and what the same Dionysius endured along with others on account of his reverence for the God of all things, his own words will show; he sent them to Germanus, a bishop of his time who was trying to speak ill of him. He sets them out in this way:

11.2| I run the risk of falling into great folly and genuine senselessness, being driven by necessity to recount the marvelous dispensation of God toward us. But since, as he says, hiding a king's secret is good, yet to disclose the works of God is glorious, I will grapple with the violence of Germanus.

11.3| I went to Aemilianus, not alone; my fellow presbyter Maximus followed me, along with the deacons Faustus, Eusebius and Chaeremon, and one of the brothers present from Rome went in with us.

11.4| Aemilianus did not say to me at the outset, "Do not hold assemblies." That would have been superfluous for him, and a last step, when he was running back to the first; for his argument was not about whether others should hold assemblies, but about whether we ourselves should be Christians at all, and he ordered me to stop that, supposing that if I changed, the others would follow me.

11.5| I answered in words not unsuited to the occasion and not far from "One must obey God rather than men," but I bore plain witness that I worship the God who alone is, and none other, and that I would never change nor ever cease to be a Christian. After this he ordered us to go away to a village near the desert called Kephro.

11.6| But hear the very words spoken by both sides, as they were recorded. When Dionysius, Faustus, Maximus, Marcellus and Chaeremon were brought in, Aemilianus, who held the governorship, said: I have already spoken with you informally, off the record, about the kindness our lords have shown toward you.

11.7| For they have granted you an opportunity of safety, if you are willing to turn to what accords with nature and worship the gods who preserve their empire, and to forget what is contrary to nature. What do you say to this? I do not expect you to be ungrateful for their kindness, since they are urging you toward better things.

11.8| Dionysius answered: Not everyone worships all the gods, but each group worships certain ones, whom they consider gods. We, then, worship and revere the one God, the Maker of all things, who also entrusted the empire to the most god-beloved Augusti Valerian and Gallienus, and to Him we pray continually for their empire, that it may stay unshaken.

11.9| Aemilianus, who held the governorship, said to them: What prevents you from worshiping this god too, if he is indeed a god, along with the gods who are gods by nature? For you were ordered to revere gods, and gods whom everyone knows. Dionysius answered: We worship no other.

11.10| Aemilianus, who held the governorship, addressed them: I see that you are both ungrateful and insensible to the gentleness of the Augusti. Therefore you will not remain in this city, but will be sent to the Libyan region, to a place named Kephro; for I have chosen this place by order of our Augusti. It will in no way be permitted either to you or to anyone else to hold assemblies or to enter the so-called cemeteries. And if anyone is shown not to have gone to the place I have ordered, or is found in any gathering,

11.11| will hang the danger on himself; for the required attention will not be lacking. So withdraw to the places you were ordered to." And although I was ill, he pressed me hard, granting not even one day's delay. What leisure, then, did I still have to hold a meeting or not to hold one?

11.12| Then, after other matters, he says: "But we did not give up even the perceptible assembly with the Lord. Those in the city I gathered together with greater zeal, as though I were present with them, absent in body, as he said, but present in spirit. And in Kephro a large church likewise stayed with us, some of the brothers from the city following and others coming together from Egypt. There too God opened for us a door for the word.

11.13| We were persecuted at first and stoned, but afterward not a few of the nations abandoned their idols and turned to God. Until then they had not received the word, and it was first sown among them through us.

11.14| And just as God had led us to them for this purpose, so, when we had fulfilled this ministry, he led us away again. For Aemilianus wanted to move us to rougher places, as it seemed, more like Libya, and ordered people from everywhere to stream into the Mareotic district, assigning villages to each group according to their region; but he stationed us rather on the road, to be seized first. For clearly he was arranging and preparing things so that, whenever he wished to arrest us, he would have everyone easy to catch. As for me, when I was ordered to go away to Kephro,

11.15| I was ignorant of where that place was, having hardly even heard its name before; and yet I set out cheerfully and without disturbance. But when it was announced to me that I was to move my quarters to the district of Kollouthion, the bystanders know my state of mind (for here I shall accuse myself).

11.16| At first I was vexed and very angry; for even if those places were better known to us and more familiar, people said that the area was empty of brothers and serious men, and exposed to the annoyances of travelers and the raids of robbers.

11.17| But I found consolation when the brothers reminded me that it lay closer to the city, and that while Kephro brought us much contact with the brothers from Egypt, so that we could hold wider assemblies, there, with the city nearer, we would more regularly enjoy the sight of those truly beloved, closest and dearest to us; for they would arrive and rest, and, as in more distant suburbs, there would be gatherings in turn. And so it turned out.

11.18| And after other remarks on his experiences, he again writes the following: "Germanus prides himself on many confessions; he has many things to tell that happened to him. Let him count up as many as he can of the sentences passed against us, confiscations, proscriptions, seizures of property, removals from rank, disregard of worldly glory, contempt for the praises of governors and councillors and for the opposite, and the endurance of threats, outcries, dangers, persecutions, wandering, hardship and every kind of affliction, such as I met with under Decius and Sabinus, and such as have befallen me up to now under Aemilianus.

11.19| But where has Germanus appeared? What is there to say about him? But I will let go of the great folly into which I fall because of Germanus, and for that reason I leave the account of each of the events to the brothers who know them to tell."

11.20| The same man, in his letter to Domitius and Didymus, again mentions events of the persecution in these words: "As for our own people, who are many and unknown to you, it is superfluous to list them by name; but know that men and women, young and old, girls and aged women, soldiers and private citizens, every race and every age, some through scourges and fire, others through the sword, having won the contest, have received their crowns.

11.21| For others no great length of time proved enough to prove them acceptable to the Lord, just as, it seems, it has not been for me either up to now; therefore he has put me off to a time he himself knows to be suitable, he who says: 'In an acceptable time I heard you, and on a day of salvation I helped you.'

11.22| Since you ask about our affairs and want to be told how we are getting on, you have surely heard how, when we were led off as prisoners by a centurion and officers and the soldiers and attendants with them, myself, Gaius, Faustus, Peter and Paul, some of the people of Mareotis came upon us and, though we were unwilling and not even following, seized us by force and dragged us away.

11.23| But now I, with Gaius and Peter, alone, bereaved of the other brothers, am shut up in a desert and parched place in Libya, three days' journey distant from Paraitonion.

11.24| And going on, he says: "In the city they have slipped in unseen, visiting the brothers. Among the presbyters are Maximus, Dioscorus, Demetrius and Lucius; while Faustinus and Aquila, who are more conspicuous in the world, roam about in Egypt. Of the deacons, those left after the ones who died on the island are Faustus, Eusebius and Chaeremon. Eusebius is the one whom God strengthened from the beginning and prepared to fulfil with courage the services owed to the confessors who found themselves in the prisons, and to carry out, not without danger, the laying out of the bodies of the perfect and blessed martyrs. For even to this day the governor does not let up, putting some of those brought before him to death savagely,

11.25| as I said before, tearing others to pieces with tortures, and wasting others away with prisons and chains, while he orders that no one approach them and searches to see whether anyone is seen; and yet God, through the eagerness and persistence of the brothers, gives rest to those who are hard pressed."

11.26| So much for Dionysius. One should know that Eusebius, whom he called a deacon, was appointed a short time afterward bishop of Laodicea in Syria; that Maximus, whom he then called a presbyter, succeeded Dionysius himself in the ministry to the brothers at Alexandria; and that Faustus, who had distinguished himself with him at that time in confession, was kept safe until the persecution of our own day, and, quite aged and full of days, was perfected in our own time by martyrdom, his head struck off. But such were the events that befell Dionysius at that time.

12.1| During the persecution of Valerian just described, three men at Caesarea in Palestine shone in the confession of Christ and were adorned with divine martyrdom and became food for wild beasts. One was named Priscus, another Malchus, and the third Alexander. These men, they say, living in the countryside, first reproached themselves as careless and slack, because, while the time was handing out prizes to those eager with heavenly longing, they themselves were neglecting them rather than seizing the crown of martyrdom for themselves. Having resolved on this, they set out for Caesarea, went straight to the judge, and met the end already described. Besides these, they report that a woman in the same city during the same persecution contended in a similar struggle; the account holds that she belonged to the heresy of Marcion.

13.1| But Valerian did not endure his slavery among the barbarians for long, and his son, taking sole rule, managed the empire with more good sense. At once, by edicts, he ended the persecution against us, ordering by a rescript that those who presided over the Word could carry out their customary duties in freedom. It runs as follows: "Emperor Caesar Publius Licinius Gallienus, Pious, Fortunate, Augustus, to Dionysius and Pinnas and Demetrius and the other bishops. I have commanded the benefit of my gift to be carried out through the whole world, so that they may withdraw from the places of worship, and for this reason you too may use the form of my rescript, so that no one may trouble you. And this, which can be fulfilled by you as far as is permitted, was granted by me long ago; and for this reason Aurelius Quirinius, who oversees the greatest matter, will observe the form given by me." Let this, rendered more clearly from the Roman tongue, be set down here. Another ordinance of the same emperor is also in circulation, which he made to other bishops, permitting them to recover the sites of the so-called cemeteries.

14.1| In this period Xystus still led the church of the Romans; of the church at Antioch, after Fabius, Demetrianus; Firmilian, of Caesarea in Cappadocia; and in addition, of the churches of Pontus, Gregory and his brother Athenodorus, pupils of Origen. Of Caesarea in Palestine, when Theoctistus passed away, Domnus succeeded to the bishopric, and when he had lived only a short time, Theotecnus, our contemporary, was established as successor; he too belonged to Origen's school. At Jerusalem also, when Mazabanes had gone to rest, Hymenaeus, who himself shone for very many years down to our own time, succeeded to the throne.

15.1| In these times, when the churches everywhere were at peace, at Caesarea in Palestine Marinus, a man honored with rank in the army and distinguished by birth and wealth, had his head cut off for his witness to Christ, on the ground that follows. Among the Romans there is a certain honor, the vine-staff,

15.2| They say that those who obtain it become centurions. A place fell vacant, and the order of promotion called Marinus to it. But just as he was on the point of receiving the honor, another man came forward before the tribunal and accused him: according to the ancient laws, he said, Marinus could not share in Roman rank, because he was a Christian who did not sacrifice to the emperors; the office, he claimed, fell by right to himself.

15.3| The judge, who was named Achaeus, was stirred by this. He first asked Marinus what his convictions were, and when he saw him steadfastly confessing that he was a Christian, he gave him a period of three hours to consider.

15.4| When Marinus had left the court, Theoteknus, the bishop of that place, drew him aside. He approached him in conversation, took him by the hand, and led him to the church. Standing with him inside, right beside the sanctuary, he lifted his cloak a little, pointed out the sword that hung at his side, and at the same time set before him the writing of the divine Gospels, telling him to choose whichever of the two he preferred. Without hesitation Marinus stretched out his right hand and took the divine Scripture. "Hold fast, then, hold fast to God," Theoteknus said to him, "and may you obtain what you have chosen, strengthened by him. Go in peace."

15.5| As soon as he came back from there, a herald was crying out, summoning him before the tribunal, for the appointed time had by now run out. He stood before the judge and showed a zeal even greater than his faith, and just as he was he was led away to death and in that way was perfected.

16.1| In that city Astyrius too is remembered for his God-loving boldness. He was a senator at Rome, dear to the emperors, and known to everyone for his noble birth and wealth. He was present when the martyr was put to death; he put his shoulder under the body, lifted it onto a splendid and costly robe, and carried it away. He wrapped it very richly and gave it the burial that was fitting. Those who knew the man and have survived down to our own day tell countless other stories about him, and also one such marvel as this.

17.1| They say that at Caesarea Philippi, which the Phoenicians call Paneas, at the springs shown there in the foothills of the mountain named Paneion, from which the Jordan also flows, a victim is thrown in on a certain festival day, and by the power of the demon it strangely vanishes, and what happens is a celebrated wonder to those present. Once, then, Astyrius was present at these proceedings and saw the crowd stunned by the thing. He pitied their error, and lifting his face to heaven, he begged the God over all, through Christ, to expose the demon who led the people astray and to put an end to the deception of men. They say that when he had prayed, the sacrificial victim suddenly floated up on the springs, and so the marvel left them, and no wonder ever happened at that place again.

18.1| But since I have come to mention this city, I think it wrong to pass over an account that is worth recording for those who come after us. For the woman with the flow of blood, who we have learned from the holy Gospels found release from her affliction through our Savior, they said came from here; her house, they said, is pointed out in the city, and wonderful memorials of the Savior's kindness to her remain.

18.2| For they said that on a high stone at the gates of her house stands a bronze figure of a woman kneeling, her hands stretched out before her, like a woman making supplication. Directly opposite it stands another of the same material, the upright figure of a man, neatly clad in a double cloak, stretching out his hand to the woman. Beside his feet, upon the pedestal itself, a strange kind of plant grows, which rises as far as the hem of the bronze cloak and is a cure for every kind of disease. They said that this statue bore the likeness of Jesus.

18.3| It remained even to our own time, so that we received it by sight as well when we stayed in the city.

18.4| It is not at all surprising that Gentiles who long ago were benefited by our Savior did this, since we have also seen portraits of Christ himself and of his apostles Paul and Peter preserved in paintings in colors. This is natural, because the ancients, without any scruple, were accustomed to honor them in this way as saviors, following the habit of the Gentiles.

19.1| The throne of James, the first to take up the bishop's office of the church at Jerusalem at the hands of the Savior and the apostles, and whom the divine writings record as having been called the brother of Christ, has been preserved down to the present day. The brethren there who care for it in succession show clearly to all what reverence for the sake of the love of God both the men of old and those down to our own time have kept, and still keep, toward holy men. So much, then, for that.

20.1| Besides the letters already mentioned, Dionysius at this time also composed the festal letters that are still in circulation, in which he raised, in a rather festive tone, discussions about the feast of the Passover. Of these, one he dedicates to Flavius, the other to Domitius and Didymus, and in it he also sets out a rule of an eight-year cycle, establishing that the feast of the Passover should be celebrated at no other time than after the spring equinox. In addition to these he drafted another letter to his fellow presbyters in Alexandria, and others to different people as well, and these too while the persecution was still going on.

21.1| When peace was all but upon them, he returned to Alexandria. But there sedition and war broke out again, so that he could not possibly oversee all the brethren in the city, who were divided into the two parties of the strife. Once more, at the feast of the Passover, like someone living abroad, he addressed them by letter from Alexandria itself.

21.2| Afterward, writing another festal letter to Hierax, a bishop of those in Egypt, he mentions the sedition of the Alexandrians in his time in these words: "As for me, what is surprising if it is hard to converse even by letters with those who live farther away, when even conversing with myself and taking counsel with my own soul has become impossible?

21.3| To my own heart, the brethren who share my tent and my spirit, and the citizens of the same church, I need to send letters, and yet how to dispatch them appears impossible. For it would be easier for a person to cross not merely into foreign lands but from the east to the west than to get from one part of Alexandria to another within Alexandria itself.

21.4| The road through the middle of the city is more impassable and untrodden than that vast, trackless desert which Israel traveled across in two generations. And the calm, windless harbors have come to resemble the sea which, when it was split and walled up on either side, the Israelites had as a road for horses, and in whose highway the Egyptians were drowned; for often, from the slaughters in them, they have looked like a Red Sea.

21.5| The river that flows past the city has at one time shown itself drier than the desert without water, and even more parched than the one through which Israel passed and grew so thirsty that they cried out against Moses, and drink flowed for them from the sheer rock by the One who alone works wonders.

21.6| At another time it has flooded so greatly that, washing over the whole surrounding country, the roads and the fields, it threatened to bring on again the rush of water that came in the time of Noah. And always it runs down polluted with blood and killings and drownings, as it became for Pharaoh under Moses, when it turned to blood and festered.

21.7| What other water could there be to purify the water that purifies everything? How could the great boundless ocean, poured out over it, cleanse away this bitter sea? Or how would the great river that flows out of Eden wash away the filth, by diverting into the one stream of the Gihon the four heads it is divided into?

21.8| Or when will the air, clouded on every side by foul exhalations, become clear? For such are the vapors that breathe out from the land, the winds from the sea, the breezes from the rivers and the vapors drawn up from the harbors,

21.9| that the dews are the discharge of corpses decaying in all the elements beneath. And then people are amazed and perplexed as to where the continual plagues come from, where the severe diseases, where the manifold ruin, where the varied and abundant destruction of men, and why the greatest of cities no longer holds so vast a throng of inhabitants, from little children up to those grown extremely old, as it once nourished of those whom it called 'raw old men.' Yet the men of forty to seventy years were in those days so much more numerous that their total cannot now be made up, even though those from fourteen to eighty have been added and enrolled for the public grain allowance; and those who are youngest in appearance have become, so to speak, the same age as the oldest of former times.

21.10| And though they see the human race on earth thus constantly diminishing and being consumed, they do not tremble, even as their complete disappearance grows and advances.

22.1| After this, when a pestilential disease had followed upon the war and the festival was drawing near, he again addressed the brethren in writing, marking the sufferings of the calamity in these words:

22.2| To other people the present might not seem a time for festival, and for them there is neither this nor any other, not only of the sorrowful kind but not even of the sort that someone fully joyful would count most so. As things stand, everything is lamentation, all are in mourning, and wailing resounds through the city on account of the multitude of the dead and of those who die day after day.

22.3| For as it is written concerning the firstborn of the Egyptians, so now too a great cry has arisen; for there is no house in which there is not someone dead, and would that it were only one. Many terrible things had indeed happened before this as well:

22.4| first they drove us out, and though we were alone in being persecuted and put to death by everyone, even then we kept festival, and every place of each affliction became for us a place of assembly, whether field, desert, ship, inn, or prison; and the most radiant festival of all was held by the perfect martyrs, who feasted in heaven.

22.5| After that came war and famine, which we endured together with the pagans, though we alone bore up under all they did to harm us, and also took our share of what they did to one another and suffered, and we rejoiced again in the peace of Christ, which he bestowed upon us alone.

22.6| But when we and they had obtained the briefest breathing space, this disease fell upon us, something more fearful to them than any fear and more grievous than any calamity whatever, and, as one of their own historians has reported, the one thing of all that surpassed hope; to us it was not of that kind, but a training and a test second to none of the others. For it did not hold back even from us, though it went out in great force against the pagans.

22.7| Next after this he continues, saying: At any rate, most of our brethren, through exceeding love and brotherly affection, did not spare themselves but clung to one another, visited the sick without taking precautions, served them unceasingly and tended them in Christ, and departed this life with them most gladly, filled with the suffering of others, drawing the sickness upon themselves from their neighbors, and willingly taking up their pains. And many who nursed others and restored them to strength died themselves, having transferred the others' death to themselves, and so fulfilled in deed the common saying, which always seemed to be merely a courtesy, as they went off as the offscouring of those they cared for.

22.8| In this way, then, the best of the brethren among us departed from life, some presbyters, some deacons, and some of the laity, very highly praised, so that this form of death, which came about through great piety and strong faith, seemed to fall nothing short of martyrdom.

22.9| And the bodies of the saints they received with upturned hands and into their bosoms, closed their eyes and mouths, carried them on their shoulders and laid them out, clung to them and embraced them, and adorned them with washings and wrappings; and a little later they themselves met the same treatment, since those left behind were always following after those who had gone before.

22.10| The pagans did quite the opposite. They thrust away those who were beginning to fall ill, fled from their dearest, threw them half dead into the roads, and cast out the unburied dead like refuse, turning away from the spread and sharing of death, which was not easy to avoid even with many devices.

22.11| After this letter too, when matters in the city had been quieted, he again wrote another festal letter, addressed to the brethren in Egypt, and after it he drew up others once more; there is also extant a letter of his on the sabbath, and a further one on exercise.

22.12| Writing again to Hermammon and the brethren in Egypt, and relating a great deal else about the wickedness of Decius and those who came after him, he mentions the peace under Gallienus:

23.1| But nothing is like hearing about these matters as they stand: That man, having let go one of his emperors and attacked the other, was swiftly wiped out, with his whole family and root and branch, while Gallienus was proclaimed and acknowledged by all, an emperor at once old and new, being first and present after those others.

23.2| For according to what was said to the prophet Isaiah, the things from the beginning have come, behold, and new things will now arise. For as a cloud passing beneath the sun's rays and, for a little while, covering it casts it into shadow and appears in its place, and then, when the cloud has passed or dissolved, the sun that rose before rises again and shows itself, so Macrianus, having thrust himself forward and approached the reigning power of Gallienus, is no more, since he never even was, while the other is as he was before,

23.3| It is as though the kingdom has put off its old age and cleansed itself of the wickedness that was there before; it now blooms more vigorously, is seen and heard farther afield, and spreads everywhere.

23.4| Then he goes on to indicate the time at which he was writing this, in these words: "Once more I am led to consider the days of the emperors' years. For I see that the most impious men, though once named everywhere, have in a short time become nameless, while the more devout and God-loving emperor, who has gone beyond the seventh year, is now finishing his ninth, in which we shall hold the festival."

24.1| In addition to all this, he also took great pains over his two books On Promises. Their occasion was Nepos, a bishop of the churches in Egypt, who taught in a rather Jewish manner that the promises given to the saints in the divine Scriptures would be fulfilled, and who supposed that there would be a kind of thousand years of bodily luxury on this dry earth.

24.2| Since Nepos thought he could strengthen his own opinion from the Revelation of John, he composed a work on the subject and gave it the title Refutation of the Allegorists.

24.3| Dionysius takes issue with him in his books On Promises. In the first he sets out his own judgment on the doctrine; in the second he treats the Revelation of John. There, mentioning Nepos near the beginning, he writes about him as follows:

24.4| "Since they put forward a certain work by Nepos, on which they lean heavily as proving beyond dispute that the kingdom of Christ will exist on earth, I accept and love Nepos in many other respects: for his faith, his industry, his devotion to the Scriptures, and his abundant psalmody, in which many of the brothers are cheered even to this day. I hold the man in great respect, all the more because he has already gone to his rest. But truth is dear to me and honored above all things; one must praise and agree generously if something is rightly said, but examine and correct whatever does not seem soundly written.

24.5| If he were present and were putting forward his teaching by word alone, unwritten discussion would have been enough, persuading and reconciling the opponents by question and answer. But a writing has been published which, as some think, is highly persuasive. Some teachers regard the Law and the Prophets as nothing, neglect to follow the Gospels, and belittle the letters of the apostles, while they proclaim the teaching of this work as some great and hidden mystery, and allow our simpler brothers to entertain no lofty or grand thought about the glorious and truly divine manifestation of our Lord, nor about our rising from the dead and our being gathered to him and made like him, but persuade them to expect small and mortal things, such as we have now, in the kingdom of God. So it is necessary for us also to hold discussion with our brother Nepos as though he were present."

24.6| After other remarks he adds the following: "When I was in the Arsinoite district, where, as you know, this doctrine had long been widespread, so that schisms had arisen and entire churches had fallen away, I summoned the presbyters and teachers of the brothers in the villages, with any of the brothers who wished to be present, and urged them to carry out an examination of the matter in public.

24.7| They brought me this book as though it were a weapon and an unassailable wall. I sat with them for three days in succession, from dawn until evening, and tried to set right what had been written in it.

24.8| On that occasion I greatly admired the steadiness of the brothers, their love of truth, their readiness to follow an argument, and their good sense, as we put our questions, raised our difficulties, and gave our assents in an orderly way and with fairness. We refused to cling at all costs and contentiously to opinions once held, even if they did not appear right; we did not shrink from objections, but as far as possible tried to hold to the matters before us and make them firm; and we were not ashamed, if reason demanded it, to change our minds and agree. Instead, with clear consciences, without pretense, and with open hearts before God, we accepted what the demonstrations and teachings of the holy Scriptures established.

24.9| In the end the originator and sponsor of this teaching, the man called Korakion, in the hearing of all the brothers present, acknowledged and solemnly assured us that he would no longer hold to it, nor argue about it, nor mention it, nor teach it, because those who had spoken against him had convinced him sufficiently. And of the other brothers, some rejoiced at the shared conversation and at the consideration and sympathy shown to all."

25.1| Then, going on further, he says this about the Revelation of John: "Some of those before us rejected the book and refuted it completely, examining it chapter by chapter, and pronouncing it unintelligible and incoherent, and its title false.

25.2| They say, in fact, that it is not John's, and that it is not even a revelation, since it is thickly veiled by a curtain of ignorance. They say that not one of the apostles, indeed no one at all among the saints or those of the church, was the author of the writing, but that Cerinthus, who founded the heresy named Cerinthian after him, wanted to attach a trustworthy name to his own fabrication.

25.3| For this, they say, was the tenet of his teaching: that Christ's kingdom would be on earth, and that he, being fond of the body and thoroughly fleshly, dreamed it would consist of the things he himself craved, the gratification of the belly and of what lies below the belly, that is, food and drink and marriages, and, by means of which he thought he could supply these more respectably, festivals and sacrifices and the slaughter of victims.

25.4| I myself would not venture to reject the book, since many of the brothers hold it in high regard. But taking my estimate of it to be beyond my own understanding, I suppose that each passage has a hidden and more wonderful meaning. For even if I do not comprehend it, I suspect that some deeper sense lies in the words,

25.5| not measuring and judging these matters by my own reasoning, but giving more to faith, I consider them too lofty to be grasped by me. I do not condemn what I have not understood; I marvel rather that I did not see it."

25.6| After this, having examined the whole text of the Revelation and shown that it cannot be understood in its obvious sense, he adds: "When the prophet has finished, one might say, the whole prophecy, he pronounces blessed those who keep it, and himself as well. For he says, 'Blessed is the one who observes the words of the prophecy in this book, and I, John, am the one who sees and hears these things.'

25.7| That he is called John, and that this writing is John's, I will not dispute; for I agree that it belongs to some holy and divinely inspired man. Yet I could not easily agree that he is the apostle, Zebedee's son, the brother of James, to whom belong the gospel titled According to John and the catholic letter.

25.8| For I judge from the character of each, from the style of the language, and from what is called the conduct of the book, that he is not the same man. The evangelist nowhere writes his own name into the text, nor proclaims himself, either through the gospel or through the letter."

25.9| Then, going further on, he says again: "John does so nowhere, neither as speaking of himself nor of another. But the writer of the Revelation puts himself forward right at the start: 'Revelation of Jesus Christ: this he gave him, to show his servants soon, and he made it known by sending it through his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and his testimony, to all that he saw.' Then he also writes a letter: 'John to the seven churches in Asia: grace to you and peace.'

25.10| The evangelist, however, did not put his own name at the head even of the catholic letter, but plainly began with the very mystery of the divine revelation itself: 'What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes.' For it was for this revelation that the Lord also pronounced Peter blessed, saying, 'Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father in heaven.'

25.11| But not even in the second and third letters attributed to John, brief as they are, does John stand named at the head; instead the Elder is written there without a name. This author, however, did not think it enough to name himself once and then narrate what follows, but takes it up again: 'I, John, your brother and partner in the affliction and kingdom and endurance of Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of God's word and the testimony of Jesus.' And indeed near the end he said this: 'Blessed is the one who keeps the words of this book's prophecy, and I, John, am the one who sees and hears these things.'"

25.12| That John is the one writing these things we must believe, since he says so himself; but which John this is remains unclear. For he did not declare himself the disciple loved by the Lord, as he often does in the Gospel, nor the one who reclined upon his breast, nor James's brother, nor the one who became an eyewitness and earwitness of the Lord.

25.13| For he would have said one of these things mentioned above, if he had wanted to make himself plainly known. But he said none of them; he called himself our brother and partner, a witness of Jesus, and one blessed in seeing and hearing the revelations.

25.14| I think there were many people who shared the name of John the apostle, who, out of love for him, and from admiring and emulating him and wishing to be loved by the Lord just as he was, embraced the same name, just as Paul and Peter are commonly used as names among the children of believers.

25.15| Now another John also appears in the Acts of the Apostles, the one called Mark, whom Barnabas and Paul took along with them, and of whom it says again: "And they had John as an assistant." But whether this is the man who wrote, I would not say; for it is not recorded that he even came with them into Asia, but it says: "Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia, but John left them and returned to Jerusalem."

25.16| But I think it was some other John, one of those who lived in Asia, since they say that there are two tombs in Ephesus, and that each is said to be John's.

25.17| And from the thoughts, the words, and the arrangement of them, it is reasonable to conclude that this man is different from the other. For the Gospel and the Epistle agree with one another, and begin in the same way: the first begins: "In the beginning was the Word,"

25.18| the other begins: "That which was from the beginning." The first of them says: "The Word became flesh, and he lived among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of an only-begotten from a father"; the other says the same things with a slight change: "What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we gazed upon and our hands touched, regarding the Word of life (the life, too, was made manifest)."

25.19| For he strikes up these themes as an overture, arguing, as he showed in what follows, against those who claim that the Lord has not come in the flesh. For this reason he carefully added: "What we have seen, we testify and report to you: the eternal life that was with the Father and appeared to us; and what we have seen and heard we report to you as well." He keeps to this and does not depart from his purposes,

25.20| and throughout he runs through the same main points and terms, some of which we will briefly recall;

25.21| but the attentive reader will find in each work abundant life, abundant light, the turning away of darkness, constant truth, grace, joy, the Lord's flesh and blood, judgment, the forgiveness of sins, God's love toward us, the commandment of love toward one another, the need for us to keep all the commandments; the reproof of the world, of the devil, of the antichrist; the Holy Spirit's promise, adoption by God, the faith we are required to have throughout, the Father and the Son, everywhere. And in short, by marking these features throughout, one can see that the Gospel and the Epistle have one and the same complexion.

25.22| But the Revelation is utterly different from these and foreign to them, neither touching nor even neighboring any of them, having, one might almost say, not even a syllable in common with them.

25.23| Indeed, neither does the Epistle contain any mention or thought of the Revelation (to say nothing of the Gospel), nor the Revelation of the Epistle, though Paul gave some hint in his letters about his own revelations as well, which he did not record separately.

25.24| Further, one can also judge the difference of the Gospel and the Epistle from the Revelation by their style.

25.25| For the former are written not only without error in the Greek language, but also with great eloquence in their diction, their reasoning, and the arrangement of their expression, and it is very far from the case that any barbarous sound or solecism or any vulgarism at all is found in them. For he evidently had both kinds of ability, since the Lord had bestowed upon him two gifts, the one of knowledge and the other of expression;

25.26| I will not deny that this man saw revelations, received knowledge, and had the gift of prophecy. Yet I see that his dialect and language are not precisely Greek: he employs foreign idioms and here and there even makes solecisms.

25.27| It is not necessary to pick these out now. I say this not in mockery, let no one suppose, but only to set right the dissimilarity between these writings.

26.1| Besides these there are many other letters of Dionysius in circulation, such as the ones directed against Sabellius, written to Ammon, bishop of the church at Berenice, and those to Telesphorus, to Euphranor, and again to Ammon and Euporus. On the same subject he also drew up four other treatises, which he sent to Dionysius of Rome, his namesake.

26.2| We also have many more letters of his beyond these, and indeed lengthy discourses written in the form of a letter, such as those On Nature, addressed to his child Timothy, and the one On Temptations, which he likewise dedicated to Euphranor.

26.3| In addition, writing to Basilides, bishop of the dioceses in the Pentapolis, he says that he had composed an exposition on the opening of Ecclesiastes, and he left behind various letters both to us and to this man. So much for Dionysius. But come, now that we have given the account of these men, let us also hand down to later readers what our own generation was like.

27.1| Sixtus, after he had presided for eleven years over the church of the Romans, was succeeded by Dionysius, namesake of the Dionysius at Alexandria. At this time Demetrianus died at Antioch, and Paul of Samosata took over the bishopric.

27.2| Paul held lowly and groveling opinions about Christ, contrary to the teaching of the church, namely that he had become a man ordinary in his nature. Dionysius of Alexandria, when invited to come to the synod, pleaded old age and bodily weakness and put off his attendance, setting out in a letter the opinion he held on the question at issue. The other pastors of the churches, however, gathered from one place and another, as against a ravager of Christ's flock, all of them hurrying to Antioch.

28.1| Those among them who shone most were Firmilian, who was bishop at Caesarea of the Cappadocians; Gregory and Athenodorus, brothers, pastors of the dioceses in Pontus; and besides them Helenus of the diocese at Tarsus and Nicomas of the one at Iconium. Also present were Hymenaeus of the church at Jerusalem and Theoteknus of neighboring Caesarea, and in addition Maximus, who likewise led the brethren at Bostra with distinction. One could list countless others as well, assembled in the city mentioned for the same cause together with presbyters and deacons, but the most conspicuous of them were these.

28.2| So, as they all met at various times and often in the same place, arguments and inquiries were raised at each session. Those around the Samosatene still tried to conceal and cover up the doctrines of his false teaching, while the others made every effort to strip it bare and bring into the open his heresy and his blasphemy against Christ.

28.3| In the course of this, Dionysius died in the twelfth year of Gallienus's reign, having held the bishopric of Alexandria for seventeen years; Maximus took over from him.

28.4| Gallienus held power for a full fifteen years, and Claudius became his successor. After the second year Claudius handed the rule over to Aurelian.

29.1| In Aurelian's time a final synod of a very great number of bishops was held, and the originator of the heresy at Antioch, caught out and by then clearly condemned by all for false doctrine, was banished from the catholic church under heaven.

29.2| It was Malchion above all who exposed him as he hid from account. Malchion was a learned man in other respects, head of a sophist's school of Greek studies at Antioch, and for the exceptional sincerity of his faith in Christ had also been judged worthy of the presbyterate of the diocese there. He conducted a debate with Paul while stenographers took it down, and we know that it is still in circulation today. He alone of the others was able to catch out the man, who was secretive and deceitful.

30.1| The pastors who had assembled together then drafted, by common decision, a single letter, addressed to Dionysius, bishop of the Romans, and to Maximus of Alexandria, and sent it around to all the provinces. In it they made known to everyone their own zeal and the perverse false teaching of Paul, the refutations and questions they had put to him, and the entire life and manner of the man. For the sake of the record it will be well to set out some of their words at this point.

30.2| To Dionysius and Maximus, and every one of our co-ministers across the inhabited world, whether bishops, presbyters or deacons, and to the entire catholic church beneath heaven: Helenus, Hymenaeus, Theophilus, Theotecnus, Maximus, Proclus, Nicomas, Aelian, Paul, Bolanus, Protogenes, Hierax, Eutychius, Theodore, Malchion and Lucius, and everyone else who dwells with us in the nearby cities and nations (bishops, presbyters and deacons), together with the churches of God, send greetings to our beloved brothers in the Lord.

30.3| After a few lines they add the following to this: We wrote and at the same time urged many of the bishops living far away to come and heal this deadly teaching, as for instance Dionysius of Alexandria and Firmilian of Cappadocia, both now blessed in death. The former did write to Antioch, but he did not think the leader of the error worthy even of a greeting, and did not write to him face to face, addressing instead the whole community; we have appended a copy of that letter.

30.4| Firmilian, for his part, came twice, and condemned the innovations that man was making, as we know and attest who were present, and many others are aware. But when Paul promised to change his views, Firmilian believed him and hoped that the matter would be set right without any reproach to the doctrine, and so he postponed action. He was deceived by a man who denied his own God and Lord, and who did not keep the faith that he himself once held.

30.5| Now Firmilian was about to cross over to Antioch again, and he had come as far as Tarsus, having had experience of the god-denying wickedness of the man. But in the meantime, while we were assembled, calling for him and waiting until he should arrive, he came to the end of his life.

30.6| After other matters, they again describe the kind of life he led, in these words: Since he has departed from the rule and gone over to counterfeit and spurious teachings, there is no need to judge the conduct of one who is outside.

30.7| Nor need we remark that though he was formerly poor and a beggar, having received no means from his fathers and gained none from a craft or any occupation, he has now risen to excessive wealth through lawless acts and sacrilegious robberies, and through what he demands of the brothers and extorts from them. He cheats those who are wronged of their due and promises to help them for a fee, yet lies to these too, reaping in vain the readiness of men in difficulties to pay to be rid of those who trouble them, and supposing godliness to be a source of gain. Nor need we mention how haughty and puffed up he is,

30.8| assuming worldly dignities, wishing to be called a ducenarius rather than a bishop, strutting through the market places, reading letters and dictating them as he walks in public, surrounded by a bodyguard, some going before and others following, a great number of them, so that the faith itself is resented and despised because of his pomp and the arrogance of his heart.

30.9| Nor need we mention the theatrical display he contrives at church assemblies, seeking glory and making a spectacle, and striking the more simple souls with astonishment by such things. He has built himself a tribunal and a high throne, unlike a disciple of Christ, and he keeps a secretum, as the rulers of the world do, and calls it by that name. He slaps his thigh with his hand and stamps the tribunal with his feet. Those who neither applaud, nor wave their linen cloths as in the theaters, nor shout out and leap up as do the partisans around him, men and women alike, who listen in such disorder, but who instead listen reverently and decorously as in the house of God, he rebukes and insults. He vulgarly abuses in public the expositors of the Word who have left this life, and boasts grandly about himself, as if he were no bishop but a sophist and a charlatan. He has stopped the psalms addressed to our Lord Jesus Christ, as being modern and the writings of modern men,

30.10| and on the great day of Easter he arranges for women to sing psalms in praise of himself in the middle of the church, which anyone would shudder to hear. Such are the things he lets the bishops of the neighboring country districts and cities, and the presbyters, who flatter him, say in their addresses to the people.

30.11| He is unwilling to agree that the Son of God descended out of heaven (and here I anticipate something that will be written later; it will not be asserted by bare words, but is shown in many ways from the records we have sent, not least where he calls Jesus Christ "from below"). Yet those who sing hymns to him and praise him in public say that this impious teacher of theirs is an angel who has come down from heaven, and he does not stop this; the arrogant man is even present while it is said. As for the women he keeps with him, whom the people of Antioch call "brought-in women,"

30.12| and those of the presbyters and deacons around him: he knows of this and their other sins, which are incurable, and conceals them. He has convicted them of it in order to hold them in his debt, so that, through fear for themselves, they dare not accuse him of the wrongs he does in word and deed. He has even made them rich, and for this he is loved and admired by such as long for such things. But why should we write of this? We know, beloved,

30.13| that the bishop and the whole body of clergy ought to be an example of every good work to the people. Nor are we unaware how many have fallen through bringing women into their households, and how others have come under suspicion. So even if one granted him that he does nothing lewd, he should still have guarded against the suspicion arising from such conduct, so as not to cause anyone to stumble, or even to encourage some to imitate him.

30.14| For how could he rebuke or admonish another not to go further in keeping company with a woman, lest he slip, as it is written, when he has already sent one away, yet keeps two with him in the bloom of youth and fair of face, and takes them along wherever he travels, and all this amid luxury and gluttony? Because of these things all groan and lament among themselves,

30.15| but they fear his tyranny and power so much that they dare not accuse him.

30.16| But these matters, as we said before, one might call to account in a man who still holds a catholic mind and is numbered with us. But as for one who has mocked the mystery with dancing and has paraded in the foul heresy of Artemas (since why should we not, however reluctantly, point out his father?), we think there is no need to demand any account of these things from him.

30.17| Then at the end of the letter they add the following: Therefore we were compelled, since he stood against God and would not yield, to excommunicate him and appoint, in his place, another as bishop for the catholic church, by God's providence, as we are convinced: Domnus, the son of the blessed Demetrianus, who earlier presided over the same diocese with distinction, and who is adorned with all the good qualities that befit a bishop. We have made this known to you so that you may write to him and receive from him letters of communion. Let Paul write to Artemas, and let those who share the opinions of Artemas be in communion with him.

30.18| So when Paul had fallen from the episcopate together with the orthodoxy of the faith, Domnus, as was said, succeeded to the service of the church at Antioch.

30.19| But since Paul was by no means willing to leave the church's house, the emperor Aurelian was petitioned and gave a most auspicious ruling on what should be done, ordering that the house be given to those with whom the bishops in Italy and in the city of Rome should correspond about doctrine. In this way the man mentioned above was driven out of the church, with utmost disgrace, by the secular authority.

30.20| Such was Aurelian toward us at that time. Yet as the years of his reign went on he came to think differently about us, and was already being urged by certain counsels to stir up a persecution against us, and there was much talk about this among all.

30.21| But just as he was about to act, and was almost on the point of signing the documents against us, divine justice came upon him. It all but loosed him by the elbows from his undertaking, and made it plainly visible to everyone that rulers of this world could never find it easy to act against the churches of Christ, unless that defending hand permitted it, by a judgment divine and heavenly, for the sake of discipline and conversion, at whatever times it saw fit.

30.22| At any rate, Aurelian, after ruling six years, was succeeded by Probus, and when he had held power for about the same length of time, Carus took over with his sons Carinus and Numerian. Again, when these had passed less than three full years, the rule passed to Diocletian and those adopted after him, in whose time the persecution of our day was carried out, together with the destruction of the churches that came with it.

30.23| But a little before this, when Dionysius, bishop of Rome, had completed nine years of service, Felix succeeded to the ministry.

31.1| At this time the man who was mad in his wits, and who took his name from his demon-possessed heresy, armed himself with the derangement of his reasoning, since the demon, none other than Satan the enemy of God, had set the man forward to the ruin of many. He was in truth a barbarian in his manner of life, in speech and in conduct, and by nature a kind of raving demoniac. His undertakings matched this: he tried to pose as Christ, at one moment proclaiming himself the Paraclete and the Holy Spirit itself, puffed up by his madness, and at another, as Christ did, choosing twelve disciples to share his novel scheme.

31.2| He stitched together false and godless doctrines gathered from countless godless heresies that had long since died out, and wiped them off from the land of the Persians onto our world like some deadly poison. From him the impious name of the Manichaeans is still on the lips of many to this day. Such, then, was the origin of this falsely named knowledge, which sprang up at the times indicated.

32.1| In these times Felix, after presiding over the Roman church for five years, was succeeded by Eutychian. He lasted less than ten full months and left the office to Gaius, a contemporary of ours. After Gaius had presided about fifteen years, Marcellinus was appointed as successor, and the persecution overtook him as well.

32.2| In these times, after Domnus, Timaeus governed the bishopric of the Antiochenes, and our contemporary Cyrillus succeeded him. In Cyrillus' time we became acquainted with Dorotheus, a learned man who had been granted the presbyterate at Antioch. He had a love of what is fine in divine matters, and he also took pains over the Hebrew tongue, so that he read the Hebrew scriptures themselves with understanding.

32.3| He was among the most liberally educated of men and was not without the preliminary schooling of the Greeks. By nature he was also a eunuch, born so from his very birth, so that the emperor, regarding it as something of a marvel, took him into his household and honored him with the oversight of the purple dye-works at Tyre.

32.4| We heard him expound the scriptures in church with moderation. After Cyrillus, Tyrannus received the bishopric of the Antiochene community, in whose time the siege of the churches was at its height.

32.5| Over the community at Laodicea, after Socrates, Eusebius presided, who had set out from the city of Alexandria. The cause of his removal was the affair of Paul: he had come into Syria on account of it, and was prevented by those here who were zealous in divine matters from journeying home. He proved a lovable embodiment of piety among our contemporaries, as it is easy to tell from the words of Dionysius set out above.

32.6| Anatolius, a good man, they say, and the son of a good man, was established as his successor. He too was an Alexandrian by birth, and in eloquence, in education, and in Greek philosophy he had carried off the first prizes among the most esteemed of our contemporaries, since he had advanced to the highest point in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and the rest of the study of dialectic and natural science, as well as in the rhetorical disciplines. For these reasons, the account goes, the citizens there thought him worthy of establishing the school of the Aristotelian succession at Alexandria.

32.7| They record countless other feats of valor of his during the siege of the Pyrouchium at Alexandria, since everyone held him worthy of exceptional precedence among those in office, but I shall mention only this one, for the sake of illustration.

32.8| The wheat, they say, had run out for the besieged, so that hunger was by now more unbearable to them than the enemies outside. At this point Anatolius, who was present, arranged something like the following. One part of the city had allied itself with the Roman army and so happened to be free of siege. Eusebius (for he was still living there then, before his move to Syria) was in the unbesieged part, and had won great fame and a name known far and wide, even to the Roman general. Anatolius sent to him and informed him about those who were perishing of hunger in the siege.

32.9| When he learned this, he asked the Roman commander, as the greatest favor he could be granted, to guarantee safety to those who deserted from the enemy; and once his request was granted, he made it known to Anatolius. Anatolius received the promise at once and called together the council of the Alexandrians. At first he urged them all to offer the Romans a hand of friendship, but when he saw them growing angry at the proposal, he said: "Yet I do not suppose you will object to this: that I advise sending out through the gates, to walk wherever they wish, those who are superfluous and of no use to ourselves at all, the old women, the small children and the old men. For why do we keep these people among us to no purpose, when they are all but dead already? Why do we wear down with hunger the disabled and those whose bodies are maimed, when we ought to feed only the men and the young, and to ration the necessary grain to those fit for guarding the city?" Having persuaded the assembly with such arguments,

32.10| he rose first and put forward the motion that every part of the population unfit for military service, whether of men or of women, should be released from the city, since even if they stayed and lingered uselessly in the city no hope of safety would exist for them, destined as they were to perish from hunger.

32.11| When all the rest of the council agreed to this, he saved almost all of the besieged, taking care first of those from the church, and then of people of every age in the whole city. Not only those named in the decree escaped, but under cover of them countless others as well, who secretly put on women's clothing and by his contrivance went out through the gates by night and hurried to the Roman army. There Eusebius received them all, and like a father and a physician restored, with every care and treatment, those who had been worn down by the long siege.

32.12| Of such shepherds the church at Laodicea was found worthy, two in succession, who by divine providence moved from the city of Alexandria to this place after the war I have described.

32.13| Anatolius, in any case, did not devote himself to writing at great length, yet enough of his works have reached us to let us learn both his eloquence and his wide learning together; in them he chiefly sets out his views on the Passover, and from these it is necessary to quote the following at present.

32.14| FROM THE CANONS ON THE PASCHA OF ANATOLIUS. In the first year, then, it contains the new moon belonging to the first month, which begins the entire nineteen-year cycle, on the twenty-sixth of Phamenoth by the Egyptians, on the twenty-second of Dystrus in the months of the Macedonians, and, as the Romans would say, on the eleventh day before the Kalends of April.

32.15| The sun is found, on the Phamenoth 26 just mentioned, not merely to have entered the first segment but already to be passing through its fourth day in it. This segment they are accustomed to call the first twelfth part, the equinoctial one, the beginning of the months, the head of the cycle, and the point where the course of the planets starts; and the one before it they name the last of the months, that is, the twelfth segment, the final twelfth part and the end of the circuit of the planets. For this reason we say that those who put the first month in it, and take the fourteenth day of the Pascha in accordance with it, make no small error and no ordinary one.

32.16| This is not our own teaching: the Jews of old knew it, even before Christ, and observed it above all. One can learn this from the statements of Philo, Josephus and Musaeus, and not by these alone, but also by the two Agathobuli, older still, who were surnamed the teachers of the great Aristobulus, who was enrolled among the seventy who translated the holy and divine Scriptures of the Hebrews for Ptolemy Philadelphus and his father, and who addressed to the same kings books of exposition on the law of Moses. In resolving the questions raised on Exodus, these men

32.17| say that all alike must offer the passover sacrifices after the spring equinox, when the first month is at its midpoint; and this is determined as the sun traverses the first section of the solar circle, or, as some of them have called it, the zodiac. Aristobulus adds that at the passover festival not only the sun must traverse an equinoctial section, but the moon too. For since the equinoctial sections are two,

32.18| one in spring, the other in autumn, and lying opposite one another; and when the day of the Passover has been fixed for the fourteenth of the month, after evening, the moon will take up the opposing position diametrically across from the sun, as can be seen at the full moons; the sun will be in the spring-equinox section, while the moon will necessarily be in the autumn-equinox section.

32.19| I know that very many other things are said by them, some of them plausible, some proceeding from the demonstrations of the Lord's writings, by which they attempt to prove that the Passover feast and that of the unleavened bread must in every case be kept after the equinox. But I pass over such material for proofs, since I am asking this of people from whom the veil over the law of Moses has been removed, and who with unveiled face now look continually, as in a mirror, on Christ and on the lessons and sufferings of Christ. That the first month among the Hebrews falls around the equinox is also demonstrated by the lessons contained in Enoch.

32.20| The same man also left behind, in ten whole volumes, introductions to arithmetic, and other proofs of his learning in divine matters and of his wide experience.

32.21| Theotecnus, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, was the first to lay hands on him for the episcopate, seeking to provide a successor to himself for his own diocese after his death; and indeed for a short time the two presided over one and the same church. And when the synod concerning Paul summoned him to Antioch, as he passed through the city of the Laodiceans, he was detained there by the brethren, since Eusebius had died.

32.22| When Anatolius too departed this life, Stephen was appointed the last, before the persecution, to hold the diocese there. He was admired by the many for his philosophical discourse and the rest of Greek education, but he was not similarly disposed toward the divine faith, as the course of the persecution afterward exposed, showing the man to be an ironist, a timid and unmanly person, rather than a true philosopher.

32.23| Yet the affairs of the church were not destined to be overthrown by this. They were set upright by God himself, the Savior of all, when Theodotus was immediately named bishop of the diocese there, a man who by his very deeds proved true both his proper name and the name of bishop. For he carried off the first prize in the medical science of bodies, and in the healing of souls he was such as no other man was, in his humanity, sincerity, sympathy, and zeal for the benefit of those who needed his help; and he also had much practice in the divine lessons. Such, then, was he.

32.24| In Caesarea of Palestine, Agapius succeeded Theotecnus, who had discharged the episcopate with the greatest diligence. We know that he labored much, showed the most genuine care in governing the people, and with a generous hand looked after the poor above all.

32.25| In his time we came to know Pamphilus, a man of supreme eloquence and a true philosopher in his very way of life, who had been honored with the rank of presbyter in the diocese there. What sort of man he was and where he came from would be the subject of no small treatise; but each detail of his life and of the school he established, the struggles he endured in his various confessions during the persecution, and the martyr's crown with which he was garlanded at last, we have set out in the separate work concerning him. He, then, was the most admirable of the men there;

32.26| but among those who in our own time have become especially rare, we know Pierius, among the Alexandrian presbyters, and Meletius, who was bishop of the churches throughout Pontus.

32.27| Pierius was distinguished for an utterly possession-free life and for philosophical learning, and was exceptionally practiced in contemplation and exposition of the divine matters and in addresses before the assembled church. Meletius (those with education called him the honey of Attica) was such a man as one might depict as the most perfect in every respect where learning is concerned. As for the excellence of his rhetoric, it is not even possible to admire it as it deserves, though one might say that this was natural to him; but of his other wide experience and wide learning, who could surpass the excellence,

32.28| given that, in all the sciences of reasoning, you would have said, after taking even a single trial of him, that he was the most skilled and most learned of men? And the virtues of his life matched these. We observed him during the time of the persecution, as he fled about the regions of Palestine, for seven whole years.

32.29| In the church at Jerusalem, after Hymenaeus, the bishop mentioned a little earlier, Zabdas took over the ministry; and when he too fell asleep not long after, Hermon, the last of those down to the persecution of our own day, succeeded to the apostolic throne that is preserved there even now.

32.30| At Alexandria, Theonas succeeded Maximus, who had been bishop for eighteen years following the decease of Dionysius. During his tenure Achilles became known in Alexandria; honored with the rank of presbyter alongside Pierius, he had been given charge of the school of the holy faith. He had shown, as fully as anyone, the rarest work of philosophy and a genuine manner of life according to the gospel.

32.31| After Theonas, who had ministered nineteen years, the episcopate of the Alexandrians passed to Peter. He too was among the most distinguished, for twelve whole years. Of these he led the church for not quite three years before the persecution; for the rest of his life he governed himself by a more strenuous discipline and took care, in no hidden way, of the common good of the churches. And so, in the persecution's ninth year, he was beheaded and adorned with the crown of martyrdom.

32.32| Having in these pages traced the subject of the successions, which stretches from the birth of our Savior to the destruction of the houses of prayer, a span of three hundred and five years, let us next leave in writing, for those who come after us also to know, the contests of those in our own day who have fought bravely for true religion: how many they were and how great.

Cite a passage by its number: every paragraph here has its own anchor (for example https://openscriptorium.com/read/eusebius/007-ecclesiastical-history-book-vii#p1), and the bracketed reference numbers link the same way.

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