Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Books I–X

saint of France,—an identification which we may follow the most loyal of the French in accepting, if we will, though we shall be obliged to suppose that our Dionysius lived to the good old age of two to three hundred years. The statement of Dionysius of Corinth that the Areopagite was bishop of Athens (repeated by Eusebius again in Bk. IV. chap. 23) is the usual unwarranted throwing back of a second century conception into the first century. That Dionysius held a position of influence among the few Christians whom Paul left in Athens is highly probable, and the tradition that later he was made the first bishop there is quite natural. The church of Athens plays no part in the history of the apostolic age, and it is improbable that there was any organization there until many years after Paul’s visit; for even in the time of Dionysius of Corinth, the church there seems to have been extremely small and weak (cf. Bk. IV. chap. 23, §2). Upon Dionysius and the writings ascribed to him, see especially the article of Lupton in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. I. p. 841–848.

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

Nero was emperor from Oct. 16, 54, to June 9, 68 a.d.

Eusebius figures are incorrect. He omits Vitellius entirely, while he stretches Galba’s and Otho’s reigns to make them cover a period of eighteen months, instead of nine (Galba reigned from June 9, 68, to Jan. 15, 69; and Otho from Jan. 15 to April 20, 69). The total of the three reigns of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius was about eighteen months.

Vespasian was proclaimed emperor by the prefect of Egypt at Alexandria, July 1, 69, while Vitellius was the acknowledged emperor in Italy. His choice was immediately ratified by his army in Judea, and then by all the legions in the East. Vitellius was conquered by Vespasian’s generals, and slain in Italy, Dec. 20, 69, while Vespasian himself went to Alexandria. The latter was immediately recognized by the Senate, and reached Italy in the summer of 70. Eusebius is thus approximately correct, though he is not exact as to details.

Titus undertook the prosecution of the war against the Jews after his father’s departure, and brought the siege of Jerusalem to an end, Sept. 8, 70 a.d.

See Acts vii. 8 sqq.

See Acts xii. 2

See Bk. II. chap. 23.

See chap. 1, note 1.

See Matt. xxviii. 19 .

Pella was a town situated beyond the Jordan, in the north of Perea, within the dominions of Herod Agrippa II. The surrounding population was chiefly Gentile. See Pliny V. 18, and Josephus, B. J. III. 3. 3, and I. 4. 8. Epiphanius ( De pond. et mens. 15) also records this flight of the Christians to Pella.

Dan. ix. 27 .

Josephus, B. J. Bks. V. and VI.

B. J. VI. 9, §§3 and 4. Eusebius simply gives round numbers. Josephus in §3 puts the number at 2,700,000, exclusive of the “unclean and the strangers” who were not allowed to eat the Passover. In the same work, Bk. II. chap. 14, §3, Josephus states that when Cestius Gallus, governor of Syria, came to Jerusalem at the time of the Passover in 65 a.d. , no less than 3,000,000 persons came about him to enter complaint against the procurator Florus. These numbers are grossly exaggerated. Tacitus estimates the number in the city at the time of the siege as 600,000, but this, too, is far above the truth. The writer of the article Jerusalem, in Smith’s Bible Dict., estimates that the city can never have had a population of more than 50,000 souls, and he concludes that at the time of the siege there cannot have been more than 60,000 or 70,000 collected within the walls. This is probably too low an estimate, but shows how far out of the way the figures of Josephus and Tacitus must be.

Josephus, B. J. Bk. V. chap. 10, §§2 and 3.

Ibid. chap. 12, §§3 and 4.

Titus had just completed the building of a wall about the city by which all egress from the town was shut off. Josephus gives an account of the wall in the paragraph immediately preceding.

Ibid. chap. 13, §6.

Ibid. Bk. VI. chap. 3, §§3 and 4.

᾽Αττικῶν τεσσ€ρων ; the word δραχμῶν is to be supplied. An Attic drachm, according to some authorities, was equal to about fifteen cents, according to others (among them Liddell and Scott), to about nineteen cents.

βαθεζώρ . Some mss. have βαθεχώρ , and the mss. of Josephus have βηθεζώβ , which Whiston translates Bethezub.

“In accordance with the idea that the souls of the murdered tormented, as furies, those who were most guilty of their death” (Stroth).

ἤδη . All the mss. of Eusebius read ὑμῶν . Some of the mss. of Josephus read ἤδη , and Rufinus translates nam et ego prior comedi. Valesius, without ms. authority (but apparently with the support of some mss. of Josephus, for Whiston translates “one-half”) reads ἥμισυ , a half, and he is followed by the English and German translators. Some change from the reading of the mss. of Eusebius is certainly necessary; and though the alteration made by Valesius produces very good sense and seems quite natural, I have preferred to accept the reading which is given by many of the mss. of Josephus, and which has the support of Rufinus.

Matt. xxiv. 19–21

Josephus, B. J. Bk. VI. chap. 9, §3. Josephus simply says that the whole number of those that perished during the siege was 1,100,000; he does not specify the manner of their death. On the accuracy of the numbers which he gives, see above, chap. 5, note 13.

Ibid. §2.

εἰς τὰ κατ᾽ ῎Αιγυπτον žργα . The works meant are the great stone quarries of Egypt (commonly called the mines of Egypt), which furnished a considerable part of the finest marble used for building purposes in Rome and elsewhere. The quarries were chiefly in the hands of the Roman government, and the work of quarrying was done largely by captives taken in war, as in the present case.

Josephus does not say that the number of those sold as slaves was upward of 90,000, as Eusebius asserts, but simply ( ibid. §3) that the number of captives taken during the whole war was 97,000, a number which Eusebius, through an error, applies to the one class of prisoners that were sold as slaves.

In B. J. Bk. VI. 8. 5 and 10. 1 Josephus puts the completion of the siege on the eighth of the month Elul (September), and in the second passage he puts it in the second year of Vespasian. Vespasian was proclaimed emperor in Egypt July 1, 69, so that Sept. 8 of his second year would be Sept. 8, a.d. 70. (Cf. Schürer, N. T. Zeitgesch. p. 347.)

Luke xix. 42–44

Ibid. xxi. 23, 24 .

Ibid. verse 20 .

It is but right to remark that not merely the negative school of critics, but even many conservative scholars (e.g. Weiss) put the composition of the Gospel of Luke after the year 70, because its eschatological discourses seem to bear the mark of having been recorded after the fulfillment of the prediction, differing as they do in many minor particulars from the accounts of the same discourses in Matthew and Mark. To cite a single instance: in the passage quoted just above from Luke xxi. 20 , the armies encompassing Jerusalem are mentioned, while in parallel passages in the other Gospels (Matt. xxiv. 15 and Mark xiii. 14 ) not armies, but “the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place” is spoken of as the sign. Compare the various commentaries upon these passages.

Compare Acts iii. 14 , and see Matt. xvii. 20, Mark xv. 11 , Luke xxii. 18 .

See above, Bk. I. chap. 12, note 14.

Josephus, B. J. Bk. VI. chap. 5, §3.

καταψευδόμενοι τοῦ θεοῦ . In the previous paragraph Josephus says that a great many false prophets were suborned by the tyrants to impose on the people. It is to these false prophets therefore that he refers here, and I have consequently felt at liberty thus to translate the Greek word given above, instead of rendering merely “liars against God” (as Crusè does), which is indefinite, and might have various meanings.

The feast referred to is the feast of the Passover. The Greek name of the month used here is ξανθικός , which was the name of a Macedonian month corresponding to our April. According to Whiston, Josephus regularly used this name for the Jewish month Nisan (the first month of the Jewish year), in which case this event took place six days before the Passover, which began on the 14th of Nisan.

᾽Αρτεμίσιος . According to Liddell and Scott, this was a Spartan and Macedonian month corresponding to a part of the ninth Attic month ( ἐλαφηβολιών ), which in turn corresponded to the latter part of our March and the early part of April. According to Wieseler, Josephus used the word to denote the second month of the Jewish year, the month Iyar.

The majority of the mss. of Eusebius read μεταβαίνομεν , “we go hence.” But at least one of the best mss. and a majority of the mss. of Josephus, supported by Rufinus and Jerome (who render migremus ), read μεταβαίνωμεν , “let us go hence,” and I have followed Stephanus, Valesius, Stroth, and the English and German translators in adopting that reading.

That is, in 62 a.d. for, according to Josephus, the war began in 66 a.d. A little further on, Josephus says that he continued his cry for seven years and five months, when he was slain during the siege of Jerusalem. This shows that he is here, as well as elsewhere, reckoning the date of the beginning of the war as 66 a.d.

That is, the Feast of Tabernacles, which began on the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the Jewish year, and continued seven days.

This was Albinus, as we should know from the date of the event, and as Josephus directly states in the context. He was procurator from 61 or 62 to 64 a.d. See above, Bk. II. chap. 23, note 35, and chap. 22, note 1.

See Josephus, B. J. VI. 5.4, and cf. ibid . III. 8. 9.

Ps. ii. 8 .

Ps. xix. 4 .

B. J., Preface, §1. We have an original source for the life of Josephus, not only in his various works, in which he makes frequent reference to himself, but also in his autobiography, which was written after the year 100. The work was occasioned by the Chronicle of Justus of Tiberias, which had represented him as more patriotic and more hostile to the Romans than he liked, and he therefore felt impelled to paint himself in the blackest of colors, as a traitor and renegade,—probably much blacker than he really was. It is devoted chiefly to an account of the intrigues and plots formed against him while he was governor of Galilee, and contains little of general biographical interest, except in the introduction and the conclusion. Josephus was of a priestly family,—his father Matthias belonging to the first of the twenty-four courses—and he was born in the first year of Caius Cæsar; i.e. in the year beginning March 16, 37 a.d. He played a prominent part in the Jewish war, being entrusted with the duty, as governor of Galilee and commander of the forces there, of meeting and opposing Vespasian, who attacked that province first. He was, however, defeated, and gave himself up to the victors, in the summer of 67. He was treated with honor in the camp of the Romans, whom he served until the end of the war, and became a favorite and flatterer of the Vespasian house, incurring thereby the everlasting contempt of his country men. He went to Rome at the close of the war, and lived in prosperity there until early in the second century. His works are our chief source for a knowledge of Jewish affairs from the time of the Maccabees, and as such are, and will always remain, indispensable, and their author immortal, whatever his character. He was a man of learning and of talent, but of inordinate selfishness and self-esteem. He was formerly accused of great inaccuracy, and his works were considered a very poor historical source; but later investigations have increased his credit, and he seems, upon the whole, to have been a historian of unusual ability and conscientiousness.

Eusebius is the only one, so far as we know, to mention this statue in Rome, and what authority there is for his statement we cannot tell.

In §64 of his Life Josephus tells us that Titus was so much pleased with his accounts of the Jewish war that he subscribed his name to them, and ordered them published (see the next chapter, §8