Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Books I–X

personal activity of so distinguished a writer has led some critics (e.g. Salmon in Smith and Wace, I. p. 386, who refers to Lightfoot, Journal of Philology, I. 98, as holding the same view) to assume the identity of Caius and Hippolytus, supposing that Hippolytus in the Dialogue with Proclus styled himself simply by his prænomen Caius and that thus as the book fell into the hands of strangers the tradition arose of a writer Caius who in reality never had a separate existence. This theory is ingenious, and in many respects plausible, and certainly cannot be disproved (owing chiefly to our lack of knowledge about Caius), and yet in the absence of any proof that Hippolytus actually bore the prænomen Caius it can be regarded as no more than a bare hypothesis. The two are distinguished by Eusebius and by all the writers who mention them. On Caius’ attitude toward the Apocalypse, see Bk. III. chap. 28, note 4; and on his opinion in regard to the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, see Bk. VI. chap. 20, and Bk. III. chap. 3, note 17. The fragments of Caius (including fragments from the Little Labyrinth, mentioned above) are given with annotations in Routh’s Rel. Sacræ, II. 125–158 and in translation (with the addition of the Muratorian Fragment, wrongly ascribed to Caius by its discoverer) in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, V. 599–604. See also the article of Salmon in Smith and Wace, of Harnack, in Herzog (2d ed.), and Schaff’s Ch. Hist. II. p. 775 sqq.

ἐκκλησιαστικὸς ἀνἡρ .

γεγονώς . Crusè translates “born”; but Eusebius cannot have meant that, for in Bk. VI. chap. 20 he tells us that Caius’ disputation with Proclus was held during the episcopate of Zephyrinus. He used γεγονώς , therefore, as to indicate that at that time he came into public notice, as we use the word “arose.”

On Zephyrinus, see below, Bk. V. chap. 28, §7.

This Proclus probably introduced Montanism into Rome at the beginning of the third century. According to Pseudo-Tertullian ( Adv. omnes Hær. chap. 7) he was a leader of one division of the Montanists, the other division being composed of followers of Æschines. He is probably to be identified with the Proculus noster, classed by Tertullian, in Adv. Val. chap. 5, with Justin Martyr, Miltiades, and Irenæus as a successful opponent of heresy.

The sect of the Montanists. Called the “Phrygian heresy,” from the fact that it took its rise in Phrygia. Upon Montanism, see below, Bk. IV. chap. 27, and especially Bk. V. chap. 16 sqq.

The δὲ here makes it probable that Caius, in reply to certain claims of Proclus, was asserting over against him the ability of the Roman church to exhibit the true trophies of the greatest of all the apostles. And what these claims of Proclus were can perhaps be gathered from his words, quoted by Eusebius in Bk. III. chap. 31, §4, in which Philip and his daughters are said to have been buried in Hierapolis. That these two sentences were closely connected in the original is quite possible.

According to an ancient tradition, Peter was crucified upon the hill of Janiculum, near the Vatican, where the Church of San Pietro in Montorio now stands, and the hole in which his cross stood is still shown to the trustful visitor. A more probable tradition makes the scene of execution the Vatican hill, where Nero’s circus was, and where the persecution took place. Baronius makes the whole ridge on the right bank of the Tiber one hill, and thus reconciles the two traditions. In the fourth century the remains of Peter were transferred from the Catacombs of San Sebastiano (where they are said to have been interred in 258 a.d. ) to the Basilica of St. Peter, which occupied the sight of the present basilica on the Vatican.

Paul was beheaded, according to tradition, on the Ostian way, at the spot now occupied by the Abbey of the Three Fountains. The fountains, which are said to have sprung up at the spots where Paul’s head struck the ground three times after the decapitation, are still shown, as also the pillar to which he is supposed to have been bound! In the fourth century, at the same time that Peter’s remains were transferred to the Vatican, Paul’s remains are said to have been buried in the Basilica of St. Paul, which occupied the site now marked by the church of San Paolo fuori le mura. There is nothing improbable in the traditions as to the spot where Paul and Peter met their death. They are as old as the second century; and while they cannot be accepted as indisputably true (since there is always a tendency to fix the deathplace of a great man even if it is not known), yet on the other hand if Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome, it is hardly possible that the place of their death and burial could have been forgotten by the Roman church itself within a century and a half.

Neither Paul nor Peter founded the Roman church in the strict sense, for there was a congregation of believers there even before Paul came to Rome, as his Epistle to the Romans shows, and Peter cannot have reached there until some time after Paul. It was, however, a very early fiction that Paul and Peter together founded the church in that city.

On Dionysius of Corinth, see below, Bk. IV. chap. 23.

Another quotation from this epistle is given in Bk. IV. chap. 23. The fragments are discussed by Routh, Rel. Sac. I. 179 sq.

Whatever may be the truth of Dionysius’ report as to Peter’s martyrdom at Rome, he is almost certainly in error in speaking as he does of Peter’s work in Corinth. It is difficult, to be sure, to dispose of so direct and early a tradition, but it is still more difficult to accept it. The statement that Paul and Peter together planted the Corinthian church is certainly an error, as we know that it was Paul’s own church, founded by him alone. The so-called Cephas party, mentioned in 1 Cor. i ., is perhaps easiest explained by the previous presence and activity of Peter in Corinth, but this is by no means necessary, and the absence of any reference to the fact in the two epistles of Paul renders it almost absolutely impossible. It is barely possible, though by no means probable, that Peter visited Corinth on his way to Rome (assuming the Roman journey) and that thus, although the church had already been founded many years, he became connected in tradition with its early days, and finally with its origination. But it is more probable that the tradition is wholly in error and arose, as Neander suggests, partly from the mention of Peter in 1 Cor. i ., partly from the natural desire to ascribe the origin of this great apostolic church to the two leading apostles, to whom in like manner the founding of the Roman church was ascribed. It is significant that this tradition is recorded only by a Corinthian, who of course had every inducement to accept such a report, and to repeat it in comparing his own church with the central church of Christendom. We find no mention of the tradition in later writers, so far as I am aware.

κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν καιρόν . The κατὰ allows some margin in time and does not necessarily imply the same day. Dionysius is the first one to connect the deaths of Peter and Paul chronologically, but later it became quite the custom. One tradition put their deaths on the same day, one year apart (Augustine and Prudentius, e.g., are said to support this tradition). Jerome ( de vir. ill. 1) is the first to state explicitly that they suffered on the same day. Eusebius in his Chron. (Armen.) puts their martyrdom in 67, Jerome in 68. The Roman Catholic Church celebrates the death of Peter on the 29th and that of Paul on the 30th of June, but has no fixed tradition as to the year of the death of either of them.

Josephus, B. J. II. 14. 9. He relates that Florus, in order to shield himself from the consequences of his misrule and of his abominable extortions, endeavored to inflame the Jews to rebel against Rome by acting still more cruelly toward them. As a result many disturbances broke out, and many bitter things were said against Florus, in consequence of which he proceeded to the severe measures referred to here by Eusebius.

μυρίους ὅσους . Josephus gives the whole number of those that were destroyed, including women and children, as about thirty-six hundred (no doubt a gross exaggeration, like most of his figures). He does not state the number of noble Jews whom Florus whipped and crucified. The “myriads” of Eusebius is an instance of the exaggerated use of language which was common to his age, and which almost invariably marks a period of decline. In many cases “myriads” meant to Eusebius and his contemporaries twenty, or thirty, or even less. Any number that seemed large under the circumstances was called a “myriad.”

Gessius Florus was a Greek whose wife, Cleopatra, was a friend of the Empress Poppæa, through whose influence he obtained his appointment (Jos. Ant. XX. 11. 1). He succeeded Albinus in 64 a.d. (see above, chap. 23, note 35), and was universally hated as the most corrupt and unprincipled governor Judea had ever endured. Josephus ( B. J. II. 14. 2 sqq. and Ant. XX. 11. 1) paints him in very black colors.

Josephus ( B. J. II. 14. 4) puts the beginning of the war in the twelfth year of the reign of Nero (i.e. a.d. 66) in the month of Artemision, corresponding to the month Iyar, the second month of the Jewish year. According to Josephus ( Ant. XX. 11. 1) this was in the second year of Gessius Florus. The war began at this time by repeated rebellious outbreaks among the Jews, who had been driven to desperation by the unprincipled and tyrannical conduct of Florus,—though Vespasian himself did not appear in Palestine until the spring of 67, when he began his operations in Galilee.

Jos. B. J. II. 18. 2.

Ibid.