On Illustrious Men preface–22

You urge me, Dexter, following Tranquillus, to set in order the writers of the church, and to do for ours what he did in listing the illustrious men of pagan letters: that is, to set out briefly for you all who, from the passion of Christ to the fourteenth year of the emperor Theodosius, have left any record about the holy Scriptures. Among the Greeks the same was done by Hermippus the Peripatetic, Antigonus of Carystus, Satyrus, a learned man, and, by far the most learned of all, Aristoxenus the musician; among the Latins by Varro, Santra, Nepos, Hyginus, and, to whose example you summon us, Tranquillus. But my situation is not like theirs: for they, going over old histories and annals, could weave a not small garland for their little work as if from a vast meadow. What am I to do, who, following no one before me, have, as the saying goes, the worst teacher, myself? Although Eusebius Pamphili, in the ten books of his Church History, has been of the greatest help to us, and the volumes of each of those about whom we are to write often attest the dates of their authors. So I pray the Lord Jesus Christ that what your Cicero, who stood on the citadel of Roman eloquence, did not disdain to do in the Brutus, weaving a catalogue of the orators of the Latin tongue, I may fulfil worthily of your encouragement in listing the writers of his church. If any of those who are still writing today have been passed over by me in this volume, they will have to blame themselves rather than me. For I could not know, of those who conceal their writings, what I have not read; and what may perhaps be known to others may have been unknown to me in this corner of the world. Certainly, since they have become famous by their writings, they will not much lament the loss from our silence. Let Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, those rabid dogs against Christ, learn, then; let their followers learn (who think that the church has had no philosophers, no eloquent men, no teachers) how many and what kind of men founded, built, and adorned it; and let them stop accusing our faith of mere rustic simplicity, and rather recognize their own ignorance. Farewell in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Simon Peter, son of John, of the province of Galilee, from the village of Bethsaida, brother of the apostle Andrew and prince of the apostles, after being bishop of the church of Antioch and preaching to those of the dispersion who had believed from the circumcision, in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, went to Rome in the second year of the emperor Claudius to overthrow Simon Magus, and there held the priestly chair for twenty-five years, until the last year of Nero, that is, the fourteenth. By him he was fastened to a cross and crowned with martyrdom, with his head turned to the ground and his feet raised on high, declaring himself unworthy to be crucified as his Lord was. He wrote two letters, which are called Catholic; the second of these is denied to be his by most because of the difference of style from the first. The Gospel according to Mark, who was his hearer and interpreter, is also said to be his. But the books of which one is entitled his Acts, another his Gospel, the third his Preaching, the fourth his Apocalypse, the fifth his Judgment, are rejected among the apocryphal writings. Buried at Rome in the Vatican, near the Triumphal Way, he is honoured by the veneration of the whole world.

James, who is called the brother of the Lord, surnamed the Just, the son, as some think, of Joseph by another wife, but, as it seems to me, of Mary the sister of the Lord's mother, whom John mentions in his book, was ordained bishop of Jerusalem by the apostles immediately after the Lord's passion. He wrote only one letter, which is one of the seven Catholic letters; and it too is asserted to have been published by someone else under his name, though in the course of time it gradually gained authority. Hegesippus, who lived near the apostolic times, says in the fifth book of his Commentaries, telling of James: "After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord, surnamed the Just, took over the church of Jerusalem; for many were called James. He was holy from his mother's womb; he drank no wine or strong drink, ate no meat, was never shaved, was never anointed with ointment, and did not use the bath. To him alone it was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies, since he did not use woollen garments but linen; and he alone entered the temple and prayed for the people on bended knees, so much so that his knees were believed to have acquired the hardness of a camel's." He says many other things too, which it would take long to list. Josephus, too, in the twentieth book of the Antiquities, and Clement in the seventh of the Hypotyposes, relate that when Festus, who governed Judaea, had died, Nero sent Albinus as his successor; and before he had reached the province, Ananus the high priest, he says, a young man, son of Ananus, of priestly family, taking the opportunity of the absence of government, assembled a council and, publicly compelling James to deny that Christ was the Son of God, ordered him to be stoned when he refused. When, thrown down from the pinnacle of the temple, his legs broken, still half alive, raising his hands to heaven, he said, "Lord, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing", he was struck on the head with a fuller's club, with which wet clothes are usually wrung out, and died. Josephus likewise relates that he was of such holiness and fame among the people that it was believed that Jerusalem was destroyed because of his murder. This is the one of whom the apostle Paul writes to the Galatians: "But I saw none of the other apostles except James the brother of the Lord." And the Acts of the Apostles often bear witness about this. The Gospel too which is called according to the Hebrews, which I recently translated into Greek and Latin, and which Origen also often uses, relates after the Saviour's resurrection: "And when the Lord had given the linen cloth to the servant of the priest, he went to James and appeared to him. For James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour in which he had drunk the Lord's cup until he should see him rising from those who sleep." And again a little later: "Bring," the Lord says, "a table and bread." And immediately it is added: "He took bread and blessed and broke it, and gave it to James the Just, and said to him: My brother, eat your bread, for the Son of Man has risen from those who sleep." So he ruled the church of Jerusalem for thirty years, that is, until the seventh year of Nero, and was buried near the temple, where he had also been thrown down. His tombstone was well known until the siege of Titus and the last one of Hadrian. Some of our people thought he was buried on the Mount of Olives, but their opinion is false.

Matthew, also called Levi, apostle and formerly tax collector, first composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in Hebrew letters and words, for the sake of those of the circumcision who had believed; who afterwards translated it into Greek is not sufficiently certain. The Hebrew itself is kept to this day in the library at Caesarea, which Pamphilus the martyr collected with great zeal. I too had the opportunity of copying it from the Nazarenes, who use this volume in Beroea, a city of Syria. In it it is to be noted that wherever the evangelist, whether in his own person or in that of the Lord and Saviour, uses testimonies of the Old Scripture, he follows not the authority of the Seventy translators but the Hebrew; among them are these two: "Out of Egypt I have called my son", and "For he shall be called a Nazarene."

Jude, the brother of James, left a short letter, which is one of the seven Catholic letters. And because it takes a testimony from the book of Enoch, which is apocryphal, it is rejected by most; yet it has now earned authority by its antiquity and use, and is counted among the holy Scriptures.

The apostle Paul, formerly Saul, outside the number of the twelve apostles, was of the tribe of Benjamin and the town of Giscala in Judaea; when it was taken by the Romans, he moved with his parents to Tarsus in Cilicia. Sent by them to Jerusalem to study the Law, he was taught by Gamaliel, a very learned man, whom Luke mentions. Having been present at the killing of the martyr Stephen, and having received letters from the high priest of the temple to persecute those who had believed in Christ, as he was going to Damascus he was driven to faith by the revelation which is written in the Acts of the Apostles, and was changed from a persecutor into a vessel of election. When Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Cyprus, was the first to believe at his preaching, he took the name Paul from him, because he had brought him under the faith of Christ. Joined with Barnabas, he travelled through many cities, and returning to Jerusalem was ordained apostle of the Gentiles by Peter, James, and John. And since his conduct is written of most fully in the Acts of the Apostles, I will say only this: in the twenty-fifth year after the Lord's passion, that is, the second of Nero, at the time when Festus, procurator of Judaea, succeeded Felix, he was sent bound to Rome, and, remaining two years in free custody, he disputed daily with the Jews about the coming of Christ. It should be known, however, that at his first defence, when Nero's power was not yet established nor had he broken out into such crimes as the histories relate of him, Paul was released by Nero, so that the Gospel of Christ might be preached in the western regions too; as he himself writes in the second letter to Timothy, at the time when he also suffered, dictating the letter in chains: "At my first defence no one stood by me, but all deserted me; may it not be counted against them. But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the preaching might be fulfilled and all the nations might hear; and I was delivered from the mouth of the lion", most clearly meaning Nero by the lion because of his cruelty. And in what follows: "I was delivered from the mouth of the lion." And immediately: "The Lord will deliver me from every evil work and will save me into his heavenly kingdom", since, that is, he felt that martyrdom was at hand. For in the same letter he had said earlier: "For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is at hand." In the fourteenth year of Nero, then, on the same day as Peter, he was beheaded at Rome for Christ and buried on the Ostian Way, in the thirty-seventh year after the Lord's passion. He wrote nine letters to seven churches: one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, one to the Ephesians, one to the Philippians, one to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians; and besides to his disciples, two to Timothy, one to Titus, one to Philemon. But the letter which is called To the Hebrews is not believed to be his, because of the difference of style and language, but either Barnabas's, according to Tertullian, or Luke the evangelist's, according to some, or Clement's, afterwards bishop of the church of Rome, who, they say, joined to Paul, arranged and adorned Paul's thoughts in his own language. Or else, since Paul was writing to the Hebrews and his name was unpopular among them, he cut off the title at the beginning of the greeting. He had written as a Hebrew in Hebrew, that is, very eloquently in his own tongue, so that what had been written eloquently in Hebrew was turned more eloquently into Greek; and this is the reason why it seems to differ from Paul's other letters. Some also read one to the Laodiceans, but it is rejected by all.

Barnabas of Cyprus, also called Joseph the Levite, ordained apostle of the Gentiles with Paul, composed one letter, for the building up of the church, which is read among the apocryphal writings. Afterwards, separated from Paul because of the disciple John, also called Mark, he nonetheless carried on the work of preaching the Gospel entrusted to him.

Luke, a physician of Antioch, as his writings show, was not unskilled in the Greek language. A follower of the apostle Paul and companion of all his travels, he wrote a Gospel, of which the same Paul says: "We have sent with him the brother whose praise is in the Gospel throughout all the churches"; and to the Colossians: "Luke, the beloved physician, greets you"; and to Timothy: "Luke alone is with me." He also published another excellent volume, entitled Acts of the Apostles, whose history goes as far as Paul's two-year stay at Rome, that is, to the fourth year of Nero. From this we understand that the book was composed in that city. So we count the Travels of Paul and Thecla, and the whole fable of the baptized lion, among the apocryphal writings. For how could the inseparable companion of the Apostle have been ignorant of this alone among his other doings? Tertullian too, who lived close to those times, relates that a certain presbyter in Asia, a devotee of the apostle Paul, convicted before John of being the author of the book, and confessing that he had done it out of love for Paul, was removed from his office. Some suspect that whenever Paul says in his letters "according to my Gospel" he means Luke's volume, and that Luke learned the Gospel not only from the apostle Paul, who had not been with the Lord in the flesh, but also from the other apostles. He himself declares this too at the beginning of his volume, saying: "Just as those handed them down to us who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word." So he wrote the Gospel as he had heard it, but composed the Acts of the Apostles as he had seen them. He is buried at Constantinople, to which city his bones, with the relics of the apostle Andrew, were moved in the twentieth year of Constantius.

Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, at the request of the brothers at Rome, wrote a short Gospel according to what he had heard Peter relate. When Peter heard it, he approved it and issued it to the churches to be read by his authority, as Clement writes in the sixth book of the Hypotyposes, and Papias, bishop of Hierapolis. Peter too mentions this Mark in his first letter, meaning Rome figuratively under the name of Babylon: "She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, greets you, and so does Mark my son." So, taking the Gospel he had composed, he went to Egypt, and, first proclaiming Christ at Alexandria, founded a church, with such teaching and continence of life that he drew all the followers of Christ to his example. Finally Philo, the most eloquent of the Jews, seeing the first church at Alexandria still judaizing, wrote a book about their way of life as if in praise of his own people. And as Luke relates that the believers at Jerusalem held all things in common, so he recorded what he saw being done at Alexandria under Mark's teaching. He died in the eighth year of Nero and was buried at Alexandria, Annianus succeeding him.

The apostle John, whom Jesus loved most, son of Zebedee, brother of the apostle James whom Herod beheaded after the Lord's passion, wrote his Gospel last of all, at the request of the bishops of Asia, against Cerinthus and other heretics, and especially the then rising doctrine of the Ebionites, who assert that Christ did not exist before Mary. Hence he was compelled to declare his divine birth too. But they give another reason for this writing as well: that when he had read the volumes of Matthew, Mark and Luke, he approved the text of the history and confirmed that they had spoken the truth, but that they had written the history of only one year, the one in which he also suffered, after John's imprisonment. So, passing over that year, whose events had been set out by the three, he told what was done in the earlier time, before John was shut up in prison; as will be clear to those who read the volumes of the four Gospels carefully. This also removes the discrepancy which seems to exist between John and the rest. He also wrote one letter, which begins: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard and seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life", which is approved by all churchmen and learned men. But the other two, which begin "The elder to the elect lady and her children" and the next "The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth", are said to be by John the presbyter, whose other tomb is shown to this day at Ephesus, though some think there are two memorials of the same John the evangelist; we will discuss this when we come in order to Papias, his hearer. In the fourteenth year, then, when Domitian raised the second persecution after Nero, he was banished to the island of Patmos and wrote the Apocalypse, which Justin Martyr and Irenaeus interpret. But when Domitian was killed and his acts were annulled by the senate because of their excessive cruelty, he returned to Ephesus under the emperor Nerva, and remaining there until the emperor Trajan, he founded and governed all the churches of Asia; worn out with old age, he died in the sixty-eighth year after the Lord's passion and was buried near the same city.

Hermas, whom the apostle Paul mentions when writing to the Romans: "Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, Hermes, and the brothers who are with them": they assert that he is the author of the book called the Shepherd, which is now read publicly in some churches of Greece. It is indeed a useful book, and many of the ancient writers have used testimonies from it. But among the Latins it is almost unknown.

Philo the Jew, an Alexandrian by birth, of a priestly family, is placed by us among the church writers because, writing a book about the first church of Mark the evangelist at Alexandria, he spent himself in praise of our people, recording that they were not only there but also in many provinces, and calling their dwellings monasteries. From this it appears that the first church of believers in Christ was such as monks now strive and desire to be: that nothing belongs to anyone, none among them is rich, none poor. Their inheritances are divided among the needy; they give themselves to prayer and psalms, to learning and continence, such as Luke reports the first believers at Jerusalem to have been. They say that he was in danger at Rome under Gaius Caligula, to whom he had been sent as envoy of his people; that when he came a second time, to Claudius, he spoke in the same city with the apostle Peter and was his friend, and for this reason also praised the followers of Mark, Peter's disciple, at Alexandria. There survive famous and innumerable works of his on the five books of Moses: On the Confusion of Tongues, one book; On Nature and Invention, one book; On the Things We Pray For and Detest according to Sense, one book; On Learning, one book; On the Heir of Divine Things, one book; On the Division of Equals and Opposites, a book; On the Three Virtues, one book; Why the Names of Some Have Been Changed in the Scriptures, one book; On Covenants, two books; On the Life of the Wise Man, one book; On the Giants, one book; That Dreams Are Sent by God, five books; Questions and Answers on Exodus, five books; On the Tabernacle and the Decalogue, four books; also On Victims and Promises, or Curses; On Providence; On the Jews; On the Conduct of Life; On Alexander; That Dumb Animals Have Their Own Reason; That Every Fool Is a Slave; and On Our Way of Life, one book, of which we spoke above, that is, on apostolic men, which he also entitled On the Contemplative Life of Suppliants, because, that is, they contemplate heavenly things and always pray to God. And under other titles, On Agriculture, two books, On Drunkenness, two. There are other monuments of his genius too which have not come into our hands. Of him it is commonly said among the Greeks: "Either Plato philonizes or Philo platonizes", that is, either Plato follows Philo or Philo Plato, so great is the likeness of thought and style.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca of Corduba, a disciple of Sotion the Stoic and uncle of the poet Lucan, was of a most continent life. I would not place him in the catalogue of saints if those letters did not prompt me which are read by very many, of Paul to Seneca and of Seneca to Paul. In them, though he was Nero's teacher and the most powerful man of that time, he says he wishes he had such a place among his own people as Paul had among the Christians. He was killed by Nero two years before Peter and Paul were crowned with martyrdom.

Josephus, son of Matthias, a priest from Jerusalem, captured by Vespasian, was left with his son Titus. Coming to Rome, he presented seven books of the Jewish Captivity to the emperors, father and son, which were placed in the public library; and because of the glory of his talent he even earned a statue at Rome. He also wrote twenty other books of Antiquities, from the beginning of the world to the fourteenth year of Domitian Caesar, and two books On Antiquity against Apion, the Alexandrian grammarian, who, sent as envoy of the pagans under Caligula, had also written a book against Philo containing an attack on the Jewish nation. Another book of his too, entitled On the Supremacy of Reason, is considered very elegant; in it the story of the Maccabees is set out. In the eighteenth book of the Antiquities he most plainly confesses that Christ was killed by the Pharisees because of the greatness of his signs, that John the Baptist was truly a prophet, and that Jerusalem was destroyed because of the killing of the apostle James. He wrote about the Lord in this way: "At the same time there was Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful works, and a teacher of those who gladly receive the truth; he also had very many followers both from the Jews and from the Gentiles, and he was believed to be the Christ. And when, through the envy of our leaders, Pilate had condemned him to the cross, those who had first loved him nonetheless persevered. For he appeared to them living on the third day, the songs of the prophets having foretold of him these and many other wonderful things; and to this day the race of Christians, which took its name from him, has not died out."

Justus of Tiberias, of the province of Galilee, also tried to compose a history of Jewish affairs and some short commentaries on the Scriptures; but Josephus convicts him of lying. It is certain that he wrote at the same time as Josephus.

Clement, of whom the apostle Paul says, writing to the Philippians, "With Clement and my other fellow workers, whose names are written in the book of life", was the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter, since Linus was the second and Anacletus the third, although most of the Latins think that Clement was second after the apostle Peter. He wrote, in the person of the Roman church, a very useful letter to the church of the Corinthians, which is also read publicly in some places; it seems to me to agree with the character of the letter to the Hebrews which is ascribed to Paul. Indeed he makes use of many things from that same letter, not only its thoughts but even its very order of words. The likeness between the two is altogether great. A second letter is also ascribed to him, which is rejected by the ancients; and the Disputation of Peter and Apion, written at great length, which Eusebius refutes in the third volume of the Church History. He died in the third year of Trajan, and a church built at Rome guards the memory of his name to this day.

Ignatius, the third bishop of the church of Antioch after the apostle Peter, was condemned to the beasts when Trajan stirred up persecution, and sent bound to Rome. When, sailing, he came to Smyrna, where Polycarp, the hearer of John, was bishop, he wrote one letter to the Ephesians, another to the Magnesians, a third to the Trallians, a fourth to the Romans; and departing from there he wrote to the Philadelphians and the Smyrnaeans, and especially to Polycarp, commending to him the church of Antioch; in which he also sets down a testimony about the person of Christ from the Gospel which I recently translated, saying: "But I saw him in the flesh even after the resurrection, and I believe that he is. And when he came to Peter and to those who were with Peter, he said to them: Look, handle me, and see that I am not a bodiless demon. And at once they touched him and believed." Since we have mentioned so great a man, it seems right to set down a few things from his letter which he writes to the Romans too: "From Syria to Rome I am fighting with beasts, on sea and on land, by night and day, bound to ten leopards, that is, soldiers who guard me, who become worse when you do them good. But their wickedness is my teaching, though I am not justified by that. May I enjoy the beasts that are prepared for me; and I pray that they may be swift to destroy me, and I will entice them to devour me, lest, as with some other martyrs, they dare not touch my body. And if they will not come, I will force them; I will thrust myself on them to be devoured. Forgive me, little children; I know what is good for me. Now I am beginning to be a disciple of Christ, desiring nothing of the things that are seen, that I may find Jesus Christ. Fire, cross, beasts, breaking of bones, tearing apart of limbs, crushing of the whole body, and all the torments of the devil, let them come upon me, only that I may enjoy Christ." And when he had already been condemned to the beasts, in his eagerness to suffer, hearing the lions roaring, he said: "I am the grain of Christ; I am ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may be found pure bread." He suffered in the eleventh year of Trajan. The relics of his body lie at Antioch outside the Daphne gate in the cemetery.

Polycarp, disciple of the apostle John and ordained by him bishop of Smyrna, was the leading man of all Asia, since he had as teachers, and had seen, some of the apostles and of those who had seen the Lord. Because of certain questions about the day of Easter he came to Rome under the emperor Antoninus Pius, while Anicetus governed the church in the city, and there he brought back to the faith very many believers who had been deceived by the persuasion of Marcion and Valentinus. And when Marcion happened to meet him and said, "Recognize us", he answered: "I recognize the firstborn of the devil." Later, in the reign of Marcus Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus, in the fourth persecution after Nero, he was given to the fire at Smyrna, the proconsul presiding and the whole people in the amphitheatre shouting against him. He wrote a very useful letter to the Philippians, which is read to this day in the assembly of Asia.

Papias, a hearer of John, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia, wrote only five volumes, which he entitled Explanation of the Sayings of the Lord. In them, when he declares in the preface that he does not follow various opinions but has the apostles as his authorities, he says: "I used to consider what Andrew, what Peter had said, what Philip, what Thomas, what James, what John, what Matthew, or any other of the Lord's disciples; what also Aristion and the elder John, disciples of the Lord, were saying. For books to read do not profit me so much as the living voice, still sounding to this day in its authors." From this it appears from the very list of names that the John who is placed among the apostles is one, and the elder John, whom he lists after Aristion, another. We have said this because of the opinion mentioned above, handed down, as we reported, by most, that the two later letters of John are not the apostle's but the presbyter's. He is said to have published the Jewish tradition of a thousand years, whom Irenaeus, Apollinaris, and the others followed, who say that after the resurrection the Lord will reign in the flesh with the saints. Tertullian too, in the book On the Hope of the Faithful, and Victorinus of Pettau and Lactantius are led by this opinion.

Quadratus, a disciple of the apostles, after Publius, bishop of Athens, had been crowned with martyrdom for the faith of Christ, was put in his place, and by his faith and industry gathered together the church, scattered by great terror. And when Hadrian, having spent the winter at Athens and visiting Eleusis, had been initiated into almost all the sacred rites of Greece, and so given occasion to those who hated Christians to harass believers without the emperor's command, he presented to him a book composed for our religion, very useful, full of reason and faith, and worthy of apostolic teaching. In it, showing the antiquity of his own age, he says that he had seen very many who, oppressed by various calamities in Judaea in the Lord's time, had been healed, and who had risen from the dead.

Aristides, an Athenian philosopher, most eloquent, and a disciple of Christ while keeping his former dress, presented to the emperor Hadrian at the same time as Quadratus a volume containing the account of our doctrine, that is, an Apology for the Christians, which survives to this day and is, among scholars, evidence of his talent.

Agrippa, surnamed Castor, a very learned man, disputed most forcefully against the twenty-four volumes which the heretic Basilides had composed on the Gospel, exposing all his mysteries, and listing his prophets, Barcabbas and Barcoph, and, to the terror of his hearers, certain other barbarous names, and his supreme God Abraxas, who as it were contains the year, if reckoned by the Greek numerals. Basilides, from whom the Gnostics come, lived in Alexandria in the times of Hadrian, at which time also Cochebas, leader of the Jewish faction, killed Christians with various tortures.

Hegesippus, who lived near the apostolic times, weaving together the histories of all the church's acts from the Lord's passion to his own time, and gathering from here and there many things useful to readers, composed five books in a simple style, so as to express the manner of speaking too of those whose life he followed. He states that he came to Rome under Anicetus, who was the tenth bishop after Peter, and remained until Eleutherus, bishop of the same city, who had once been Anicetus's deacon. Moreover, arguing against idols, from what error they first arose, he adds a history from which he shows in what age he flourished. For he says: "They made tombs and temples for the dead, as we see to this day; among them is Antinous too, a slave of Hadrian Caesar, for whom athletic games are held at the city of Antinous, which he founded from his name, and he set up prophets in the temple." Hadrian Caesar is recorded to have had Antinous as his favourite.