Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Books I–X

This term was applied to all or a part of these seven epistles by the Alexandrian Clement, Origen, and Dionysius, and since the time of Eusebius has been the common designation. The word is used in the sense of “general,” to denote that the epistles are encyclical letters addressed to no particular persons or congregations, though this is not true of II. and III. John, which, however, are classed with the others on account of their supposed Johannine authorship, and consequent close connection with his first epistle. The word was not first used, as some have held, in the sense of “canonical,” to denote the catholic or general acceptance of the epistle,—a meaning which Eusebius contradicts in this very passage, and which the history of the epistles themselves (five of the seven being among the antilegomena) sufficiently refutes. See Holtzmann’s Einleitung, p. 472 sqq., and Weiss, ibid. p. 89 sqq.

νοθεύεται . It is common to translate the word νόθος , “spurious” (and the kindred verb, “to be spurious”); but it is plain enough from this passage, as also from others that Eusebius did not employ the word in that sense. He commonly used it in fact, in a loose way, to mean “disputed,” in the same sense in which he often employed the word ἀντιλεγόμενος . Lücke, indeed, maintained that Eusebius always used the words νόθος and ἀντιλεγόμενος as synonymous; but in Bk. III. chap. 25, as pointed out in note 1 on that chapter, he employed the words as respective designations of two distinct classes of books. The Epistle of James is classed by Eusebius (in Bk. III. chap. 25) among the antilegomena. The ancient testimonies for its authenticity are very few. It was used by no one, except Hermas, down to the end of the second century. Irenæus seems to have known the epistle (his works exhibit some apparent reminiscences of it), but he nowhere directly cites it. The Muratorian Fragment omits it, but the Syriac Peshito contains it, and Clement of Alexandria shows a few faint reminiscences of it in his extant works, and according to Eusebius VI. 14, wrote commentaries upon “Jude and the other catholic epistles.” It is quoted frequently by Origen, who first connects it with the “Brother of the Lord,” but does not express himself with decision as to its authenticity. From his time on it was commonly accepted as the work of “James, the Lord’s brother.” Eusebius throws it among the antilegomena; not necessarily because he considered it unauthentic, but because the early testimonies for it are too few to raise it to the dignity of one of the homologoumena (see Bk. III. chap. 25, note 1). Luther rejected the epistle upon purely dogmatic grounds. The advanced critical school are unanimous in considering it a post-apostolic work, and many conservative scholars agree with them. See Holtzmann’s Einleitung, p. 475 sqq. and Weiss’ Einleitung, p. 396 sqq. The latter defends its authenticity (i.e. the authorship of James, the brother of the Lord), and, in agreement with many other scholars of conservative tendencies, throws its origin back into the early part of the fifties.

The authenticity of the Epistle of Jude (also classed among the antilegomena by Eusebius in Bk. III. chap. 25) is about as well supported as that of the Epistle of James. The Peshito does not contain it, and the Syrian Church in general rejected it for a number of centuries. The Muratorian Fragment accepts it, and Tertullian evidently considered it a work of Jude, the apostle (see De Cultu Fem. I. 3). The first to quote from it is Clement of Alexandria who wrote a commentary upon it in connection with the other catholic epistles according to Eusebius, VI. 14. 1. Origen looked upon it much as he looked upon the Epistle of James, but did not make the “Jude, the brother of James,” one of the twelve apostles. Eusebius treats it as he does James, and Luther, followed by many modern conservative scholars (among them Neander), rejects it. Its defenders commonly ascribe it to Jude, the brother of the Lord, in distinction from Jude the apostle, and put its composition before the destruction of Jerusalem. The advanced critical school unanimously deny its authenticity, and most of them throw its composition into the second century, although some put it back into the latter part of the first. See Holtzmann, p. 501.

On the Epistles of Peter, see Bk. III. chap. 3, notes 1 and 2. On the Epistles of John, see ibid. chap. 44, notes 18 and 19.

ἐν πλείσταις ἐκκλησίαις

62 a.d. With this agrees Jerome’s version of the Chron., while the Armenian version gives the seventh year of Nero.

Annianus, according to Bk. III. chap. 14, below, held his office twenty-two years. In Apost. Const. VII. 46 he is said to have been ordained by Mark as the first bishop of Alexandria. The Chron. Orient. 89 (according to Westcott in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. ) reports that he was appointed by Mark after he had performed a miracle upon him. He is commemorated in the Roman martyrology with St. Mark, on April 25.

Upon Mark’s connection with Egypt, see above, chap. 16, note 1.

Tacitus ( Ann. XIII.–XVI.), Suetonius ( Nero ), and Dion Cassius (LXI.–LXIII.).

Nero’s mother, Agrippina the younger, daughter of Germanicus and of Agrippina the elder, was assassinated at Nero’s command in 60 a.d. in her villa on Lake Lucrine, after an unsuccessful attempt to drown her in a boat so constructed as to break to pieces while she was sailing in it on the lake. His younger brother Britannicus was poisoned by his order at a banquet in 55 a.d. His first wife Octavia was divorced in order that he might marry Poppæa, the wife of his friend Otho, and was afterward put to death. Poppæa herself died from the effects of a kick given her by Nero while she was with child.

Tertullian, Apol. V.

We learn from Tacitus, Ann. XV. 39, that Nero was suspected to be the author of the great Roman conflagration, which took place in 64 a.d. (Pliny, H. N. XVII. I, Suetonius, 38, and Dion Cassius, LXII. 18, state directly that he was the author of it), and that to avert this suspicion from himself he accused the Christians of the deed, and the terrible Neronian persecution which Tacitus describes so fully was the result. Gibbon, and in recent times especially Schiller ( Geschichte der Römischen Kaiserzeit unter der Regierung des Nero, p. 584 sqq.), have maintained that Tacitus was mistaken in calling this a persecution of Christians, which was rather a persecution of the Jews as a whole. But we have no reason for impeaching Tacitus’ accuracy in this case, especially since we remember that the Jews enjoyed favor with Nero through his wife Poppæa. What is very significant, Josephus is entirely silent in regard to a persecution of his countrymen under Nero. We may assume as probable (with Ewald and Renan) that it was through the suggestion of the Jews that Nero’s attention was drawn to the Christians, and he was led to throw the guilt upon them, as a people whose habits would best give countenance to such a suspicion, and most easily excite the rage of the populace against them. This was not a persecution of the Christians in the strict sense, that is, it was not aimed against their religion as such; and yet it assumed such proportions and was attended with such horrors that it always lived in the memory of the Church as the first and one of the most awful of a long line of persecutions instituted against them by imperial Rome, and it revealed to them the essential conflict which existed between Rome as it then was and Christianity.

The Greek translator of Tertullian’s Apology, whoever he may have been (certainly not Eusebius himself; see chap. 2, note 9, above), being ignorant of the Latin idiom cum maxime, has made very bad work of this sentence, and has utterly destroyed the sense of the original, which runs as follows: illic reperietis primum Neronem in hanc sectam cum maxime Romæ orientem Cæsariano gladio ferocisse (“There you will find that Nero was the first to assail with the imperial sword the Christian sect, which was then especially flourishing in Rome”). The Greek translation reads: ἐκεῖ εὑρήσετε πρῶτον Νερῶνα τοῦτο τὸ δόγμα, ἡνίκα μ€λιστα ἐν ῾Ρώμῃ τὴν ἀνατολὴν πᾶσαν ὑποτ€ξας ὠμὸς ἦν εἰς π€ντας, διώξοντα , in the rendering of which I have followed Crusè, who has reproduced the idea of the Greek translator with as much fidelity as the sentence will allow. The German translators, Stroth and Closs, render the sentence directly from the original Latin, and thus preserve the meaning of Tertullian, which is, of course, what the Greek translator intended to reproduce. I have not, however, felt at liberty in the present case to follow their example.

This tradition, that Paul suffered martyrdom in Rome, is early and universal, and disputed by no counter-tradition and may be accepted as the one certain historical fact known about Paul outside of the New Testament accounts. Clement ( Ad. Cor. chap. 5) is the first to mention the death of Paul, and seems to imply, though he does not directly state, that his death took place in Rome during the persecution of Nero. Caius (quoted below, §7), a writer of the first quarter of the third century, is another witness to his death in Rome, as is also Dionysius of Corinth (quoted below, §8) of the second century. Origen (quoted by Euseb. III. 1) states that he was martyred in Rome under Nero. Tertullian (at the end of the second century), in his De præscriptione Hær. chap. 36, is still more distinct, recording that Paul was beheaded in Rome. Eusebius and Jerome accept this tradition unhesitatingly, and we may do likewise. As a Roman citizen, we should expect him to meet death by the sword.

The tradition that Peter suffered martyrdom in Rome is as old and as universal as that in regard to Paul, but owing to a great amount of falsehood which became mixed with the original tradition by the end of the second century the whole has been rejected as untrue by some modern critics, who go so far as to deny that Peter was ever at Rome. (See especially Lipsius’ Die Quellen der römischen Petrus-Sage, Kiel, 1872; a summary of his view is given by Jackson in the Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review, 1876, p. 265 sq. In Lipsius’ latest work upon this subject, Die Acta Pauli und Petri, 1887, he makes important concessions.) The tradition is, however, too strong to be set aside, and there is absolutely no trace of any conflicting tradition. We may therefore assume it as overwhelmingly probable that Peter was in Rome and suffered martyrdom there. His martyrdom is plainly referred to in John xxi. 10 , though the place of it is not given. The first extra-biblical witness to it is Clement of Rome. He also leaves the place of the martyrdom unspecified ( Ad Cor. 5), but he evidently assumes the place as well known, and indeed it is impossible that the early Church could have known of the death of Peter and Paul without knowing where they died, and there is in neither case a single opposing tradition. Ignatius ( Ad Rom. chap. 4) connects Paul and Peter in an especial way with the Roman Church, which seems plainly to imply that Peter had been in Rome. Phlegon (supposed to be the Emperor Hadrian writing under the name of a favorite slave) is said by Origen ( Contra Celsum, II. 14) to have confused Jesus and Peter in his Chronicles. This is very significant as implying that Peter must have been well known in Rome. Dionysius, quoted below, distinctly states that Peter labored in Rome, and Caius is a witness for it. So Irenæus, Clement, Tertullian, and later Fathers without a dissenting voice. The first to mention Peter’s death by crucifixion (unless John xxi. 18 be supposed to imply it) is Tertullian ( De Præscrip. Hær. chap. 36), but he mentions it as a fact already known, and tradition since his time is so unanimous in regard to it that we may consider it in the highest degree probable. On the tradition reported by Origen, that Peter was crucified head downward, see below, Bk. III. chap. 1, where Origen is quoted by Eusebius.

The history of Caius is veiled in obscurity. All that we know of him is that he was a very learned ecclesiastical writer, who at the beginning of the third century held a disputation with Proclus in Rome (cf. Bk. VI. chap. 20, below). The accounts of him given by Jerome, Theodoret, and Nicephorus are drawn from Eusebius and furnish us no new data. Photius, however ( Bibl. XLVIII.), reports that Caius was said to have been a presbyter of the Roman Church during the episcopates of Victor and Zephyrinus, and to have been elected “Bishop of the Gentiles,” and hence he is commonly spoken of as a presbyter of the Roman Church, though the tradition rests certainly upon a very slender foundation, as Photius lived some six hundred years after Caius, and is the first to mention the fact. Photius also, although with hesitation, ascribes to Caius a work On the Cause of the Universe, and one called The Labyrinth, and another Against the Heresy of Artemon (see below, Bk. V. chap. 28, note 1). The first of these (and by some the last also), is now commonly ascribed to Hippolytus. Though the second may have been written by Caius it is no longer extant, and hence all that we have of his writings are the fragments of the Dialogue with Proclus preserved by Eusebius in this chapter and in Bk. III. chaps. 28, 31. The absence of any notice of the