Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Books I–X

On Soter, see above, Bk. IV. chap. 19, note 2.

Eusebius in his Chronicle gives the date of Eleutherus’ accession as the seventeenth year of Marcus Aurelius (177 a.d. ), and puts his death into the reign of Pertinax (192), while in chap. 22 of the present book he places his death in the tenth year of Commodus (189). Most of our authorities agree in assigning fifteen years to his episcopate, and this may be accepted as undoubtedly correct. Most of them, moreover, agree with chap. 22 of this book, in assigning his death to the tenth year of Commodus, and this too may be accepted as accurate. But with these two data we are obliged to push his accession back into the year 174 (or 175), which is accepted by Lipsius (see his Chron. der röm. Bischöfe, p. 184 sq.). We must therefore suppose that he became bishop some two years before the outbreak of the persecution referred to just below, in the fourteenth or fifteenth year of Marcus Aurelius. In the Armenian version of the Chron. Eleutherus is called the thirteenth bishop of Rome (see above, Bk. IV. chap. 19, note 5), but this is a mistake, as pointed out in the note referred to. Eleutherus is mentioned in Bk. IV, chap. 11, in connection with Hegesippus, and also in Bk. IV. chap. 22, by Hegesippus himself. He is chiefly interesting because of his connection with Irenæus and the Gallican martyrs (see chap. 4, below), and his relation to the Montanistic controversy (see chap. 3). Bede, in his Hist. Eccles., chap. 4, connects Eleutherus with the origin of British Christianity, but the tradition is quite groundless. One of the decretals and a spurious epistle are falsely ascribed to him.

i.e., the seventeenth year of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, a.d. 177 (upon Eusebius’ confusion of Marcus Aurelius with Lucius Verus, see below, p. 390, note). In the Chron. the persecution at Lyons and Vienne is associated with the seventh year of Marcus Aurelius (167), and consequently some (e.g. Blondellus, Stroth, and Jachmann), have maintained that the notice in the present passage is incorrect, and Jachmann has attacked Eusebius very severely for the supposed error. The truth is, however, that the notice in the Chron. (in the Armenian, which represents the original form more closely than Jenner’s version does) is not placed opposite the seventh year of Marcus Aurelius (as the notices in the Chron. commonly are), but is placed after it, and grouped with the notice of Polycarp’s martyrdom, which occurred, not in 167, but in 155 or 156 (see above, Bk. IV. chap. 15, note 2). It would seem, as remarked by Lightfoot ( Ignatius, I. p. 630), that Eusebius simply connected together the martyrdoms which he supposed occurred about this time, without intending to imply that they all took place in the same year. Similar groupings of kindred events which occurred at various times during the reign of an emperor are quite common in the Chron. (cf. the notices of martyrdoms under Trajan and of apologies and rescripts under Hadrian). Over against the distinct statement of the history, therefore, in the present instance, the notice in the Chron. is of no weight. Moreover, it is clear from the present passage that Eusebius had strong grounds for putting the persecution into the time of Eleutherus, and the letter sent by the confessors to Eleutherus (as recorded below in chap. 4) gives us also good reason for putting the persecution into the time of his episcopate. But Eleutherus cannot have become bishop before 174 (see Lipsius’ Chron. der röm. Bischöfe, p. 184 sq., and note 2, above). There is no reason, therefore, for doubting the date given here by Eusebius.

All the mss. read μαρτύρων , but I have followed Valesius (in his notes) and Heinichen in reading μαρτυρίων , which is supported by the version of Rufinus ( de singulorum martyriis ), and which is the word used by Eusebius in all his other references to the work (Bk. IV. chap. 15 and Bk. V. chaps. 4 and 21), and is in fact the proper word to be employed after συναγωγή , “collection.” We speak correctly of a “collection of martyrdoms,” not of a “collection of martyrs,” and I cannot believe that Eusebius, in referring to a work of his own, used the wrong word in the present case. Upon the work itself, see the Prolegomena, p. 30, of this volume.

τοῦ κατὰ θεὸν πολιτεύματος , with the majority of the mss. supported by Rufinus. Some mss. , followed by Stroth, Burton, and Schwegler, read καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς instead of κατὰ θεὸν (see Heinichen’s note in loco ). Christophorsonus translates divinam vivendi rationem, which is approved by Heinichen. But the contrast drawn seems to be rather between earthly kingdoms, or governments, and the kingdom, or government, of God; and I have, therefore, preferred to give πολίτευμα its ordinary meaning, as is done by Valesius ( divinæ reipublicæ ), Stroth ( Republik Gottes ), and Closs ( Staates Gottes ).

Λούγδουνος καὶ Βίεννα , the ancient Lugdunum and Vienna, the modern Lyons and Vienne in southeastern France.

μαρτύρων . This word is used in this and the following chapters of all those that suffered in the persecution, whether they lost their lives or not, and therefore in a broader sense than our word “martyr.” In order, therefore, to avoid all ambiguity I have translated the word in every case “witness,” its original significance. Upon the use of the words μ€ρτυρ and μ€ρτυς in the early Church, see Bk. III. chap. 32, note 15.

The fragments of this epistle, preserved by Eusebius in this and the next chapter, are printed with a commentary by Routh, in his Rel. Sacræ. I. p. 285 sq., and an English translation is given in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, VIII. p. 778 sq. There can be no doubt as to the early date and reliability of the epistle. It bears no traces of a later age, and contains little of the marvelous, which entered so largely into the spurious martyrologies of a later day. Its genuineness is in fact questioned by no one so far as I am aware. It is one of the most beautiful works of the kind which we have, and well deserves the place in his History which Eusebius has accorded it. We may assume that we have the greater part of the epistle in so far as it related to the martyrdoms. Ado, in his Mart., asserts that forty-eight suffered martyrdom, and even gives a list of their names. It is possible that he gained his information from the epistle itself, as given in its complete form in Eusebius’ Collection of Martyrdoms; but I am inclined to think rather that Eusebius has mentioned if not all, at least the majority of the martyrs referred to in the epistle, and that therefore Ado’s list is largely imaginary. Eusebius’ statement, that a “multitude” suffered signifies nothing, for μυρία was a very indefinite word, and might be used of a dozen or fifteen as easily as of forty-eight. To speak of the persecution as “wholesale,” so that it was not safe for any Christian to appear out of doors (Lightfoot, Ignatius, Vol. I. p. 499), is rather overstating the case. The persecution must, of course, whatever its extent, appear terrible to the Christians of the region; but a critical examination of the epistle itself will hardly justify the extravagant statements which are commonly made in regard to the magnitude and severity of the persecution. It may have been worse than any single persecution that had preceded it, but sinks into insignificance when compared with those which took place under Decius and Diocletian. It is interesting to notice that this epistle was especially addressed to the Christians of Asia and Phrygia. We know that Southern Gaul contained a great many Asia Minor people, and that the intercourse between the two districts was very close. Irenæus, and other prominent Christians of Gaul, in the second and following centuries, were either natives of Asia Minor, or had pursued their studies there; and so the Church of the country always bore a peculiarly Greek character, and was for some centuries in sympathy and in constant communication with the Eastern Church. Witness, for instance, the rise and spread of semi-Pelagianism there in the fifth century,—a simple reproduction in its main features of the anthropology of the Eastern Church. Doubtless, at the time this epistle was written, there were many Christians in Lyons and Vienne, who had friends and relations in the East, and hence it was very natural that an epistle should be sent to what might be called, in a sense, the mother churches. Valesius expressed the opinion that Irenæus was the author of this epistle; and he has been followed by many other scholars. It is possible that he was, but there are no grounds upon which to base the opinion, except the fact that Irenæus lived in Lyons, and was, or afterward became, a writer. On the other hand, it is significant that no tradition has connected the letter with Irenæus’ name, and that even Eusebius has no thought of such a connection. In fact, Valesius’ opinion seems to me in the highest degree improbable.

Rom. viii. 18 .

Of course official imprisonment cannot be referred to here. It may be that the mob did actually shut Christians up in one or another place, or it may mean simply that their treatment was such that the Christians were obliged to avoid places of public resort and were perhaps even compelled to remain somewhat closely at home, and were thus in a sense “imprisoned.”

χιλιαρχής , strictly the commander of a thousand men, but commonly used also to translate the Latin Tribunus militum.

Of the various witnesses mentioned in this chapter (Vettius Epagathus, Sanctus, Attalus, Blandina, Biblias, Pothinus, Maturus, Alexander, Ponticus) we know only what this epistle tells us. The question has arisen whether Vettius Epagathus really was a martyr. Renan ( Marc Auréle, p. 307) thinks that he was not even arrested, but that the words “taken into the number of martyrs” (§10, below) imply simply that he enjoyed all the merit of martyrdom without actually undergoing any suffering. He bases his opinion upon the fact that Vettius is not mentioned again among the martyrs whose sufferings are recorded, and also upon the use of the words, “He was and is a true disciple” (§10, below). It is quite possible, however, that Vettius, who is said to have been a man of high station, was simply beheaded as a Roman citizen, and therefore there was no reason for giving a description of his death; and still further the words, “taken into the order of witnesses,” and also the words used in §10, “being well pleased to lay down his life,” while they do not prove that he suffered martyrdom, yet seem very strongly to imply that he did, and the quotation from the Apocalypse in the same paragraph would seem to indicate that he was dead, not alive, at the time the epistle was written. On the whole, it may be regarded as probable, though not certain, that Vettius was one of the martyrs. Valesius refers to Gregory of Tours ( H. E. chaps. 29, 31) as mentioning a certain senator who was “of the lineage of Vettius Epagathus, who suffered for the name of Christ at Lyons.” Gregory’s authority is not very great, and he may in this case have known no more about the death of Vettius than is told in the fragment which we still possess, so that his statement can hardly be urged as proof that Vettius did suffer martyrdom. But it may be used as indicating that the latter was of a noble family, a fact which is confirmed in §10, below, where he is spoken of as a man of distinction.

Luke i. 6 .

κλῆρον , employed in the sense of “order,” “class,” “category.” Upon the significance of the word κλῆρος in early Christian literature, see Ritschl’s exhaustive discussion in his Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche, 2d ed., p. 388 sq.

παρ€κλητον ; cf. John xiv. 16 .

πνεῦμα is omitted by three important mss. followed by Laemmer and Heinichen. Burton retains the word in his text, but rejects it in a note. They are possibly correct, but I have preferred to follow the majority of the codices, thinking it quite natural that Eusebius should introduce the πνεῦμα in connection with Zacharias, who is said to have been filled with the “Spirit,” not with the “Advocate,” and thinking the omission of the word by a copyist, to whom it might seem quite superfluous after παρ€κλητον , much easier than its insertion.

See Luke i. 67

Compare John xv. 13 .

Rev. xiv. 4 .

διεκρίνοντο . Valesius finds in this word a figure taken from the athletic combats; for before the contests began the combatants were examined, and those found eligible were admitted ( εἰσκρίνεσθαι ), while the others were rejected ( ἐκκρίνεσθαι ).

ἐξέτρωσαν , with Stroth, Zimmermann, Schwegler, Burton, and Heinichen. ἐξέπεσον has perhaps a little stronger ms. support, and was read by Rufinus, but the former word, as Valesius remarks, being more unusual than the latter, could much more easily be changed into the latter by a copyist than the latter into the former.

Gieseler ( Ecclesiastical History, Harper’s edition, I. p. 127) speaks of this as a violation of the ancient law that slaves could not be compelled to testify against their masters; but it is to be noticed that it is not said in the present case that they were called upon to testify against their masters, but only