Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Books I–X

NPNF historical edition · Translated text

Book VI — Chapter XXI — The Bishops that were well known at that Time.

Chapter XXI.—The Bishops that were well known at that Time.

1. After Antoninus ^{Edition note 1} had reigned seven years and six months, Macrinus succeeded him. He held the government but a year, and was succeeded by another Antoninus. During his first year the Roman bishop, Zephyrinus, ^{Edition note 2} having held his office for eighteen years, died, and Callistus ^{Edition note 3} received the episcopate.

2. He continued for five years, and was succeeded by Urbanus. ^{Edition note 4} After this, Alexander became Roman emperor, Antoninus having reigned but four years. ^{Edition note 5} At this time Philetus ^{Edition note 6} also succeeded Asclepiades ^{Edition note 7} in the church of Antioch.

3. The mother of the emperor, Mammæa ^{Edition note 8} by name, was a most pious woman, if there ever was one, and of religious life. When the fame of Origen had extended everywhere and had come even to her ears, she desired greatly to see the man, and above all things to make trial of his celebrated understanding of divine things.

4. Staying for a time in Antioch, she sent for him with a military escort. Having remained with her a while and shown her many things which were for the glory of the Lord and of the excellence of the divine teaching, he hastened back to his accustomed work.

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Edition notes

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Edition note 1

i.e. Caracalla, who was slain on the 8th of April, 217. Four days later, Marcus Opilius Macrinus, prefect of the prætorians, was proclaimed emperor. After a reign of fourteen months, he was defeated and succeeded by Varius Avitus Bassianus, a cousin of Caracalla, and priest of the Phœnician Sun-god, from which fact is derived the name by which he is commonly known,—Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus. Upon his accession to the imperial power, he took the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, which became his official designation.

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Edition note 2

On Zephyrinus, see Bk. V. chap. 28, note 5.

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Edition note 3

As shown in the next note, a comparison of our best sources leads us to the year 222 as the date of the accession of Urban, and consequently of the death of Callistus. A careful comparison of the various sources, which differ in regard to the years of the several episcopates of Victor, Zephyrinus, and Callistus, but agree as to the sum of the three, leads to the result that Callistus was bishop for five years, and therefore his accession is to be put into the year 217, and the reign of Macrinus (see Lipsius, Chron. d. röm. Bischöfe, p. 171 sq.).

This agrees, so far as the years of our era are concerned, with the statement of Eusebius in this chapter; but he wrongly puts Callistus’ accession into the first year of Alexander, which is a result of an error of a year in his reckoning of the dates of the emperors, which runs back to Pertinax (see Lipsius, p. 7 sq.). He does not assign Callistus’ accession to the first year of Heliogabalus because of a tradition connecting the two, but simply because his reckoning of the lengths of the various episcopates, which were given in the source used by him, led him to the year 217 for Callistus’ accession, and this, according to his erroneous table of the reigns of the emperors, was the first year of Heliogabalus.

We thus see that Eusebius is in real, though not in apparent, agreement with the Liberian catalogue in regard to the date of Callistus’ accession, which may, therefore, be accepted as certain. Nothing was known about the character and life of Callistus until the discovery of Hippolytus’ Philosophumena, or Refutation of All Heresies (see the next chapter, note 1). In Bk. IX. of that work is given a detailed description of him, from the pen of a very bitter opponent. At the same time, it can hardly be doubted that at least the groundwork of the account is true.

According to Hippolytus, he was a slave; a dishonest banker, who was punished for his dishonesty; the author of a riot in a Jewish synagogue, who was sent as a criminal to the mines; finally, after various other adventures, the right-hand man of the bishop Zephyrinus, and after his death, his successor. According to Hippolytus, he was a Patripassian, and he introduced much laxer methods of church discipline than had hitherto been in vogue; so lax as greatly to scandalize Hippolytus, who was a very rigid disciplinarian.

Whatever truth there may be in this highly sensational account (and we cannot doubt that it is greatly overdrawn), it is at least certain that Callistus took the liberal view of Christian morals and church discipline, over against the stricter view represented by Hippolytus and his party. It was, perhaps, owing to his popularity on this account that, after the death of Zephyrinus, he secured the episcopacy of Rome, for which Hippolytus was also a candidate. The latter tells us also that Zephyrinus “set him over the cemetery,”—a most interesting notice, as the largest catacomb in Rome bears the name of St. Callistus, and may be the very one of which Zephyrinus made him the superintendent.

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Edition note 4

Lipsius, in his Chron. d. röm. Bischöfe, p. 170 sq., shows that the only fixed point for a calculation of the dates of Urban and the three bishops preceding him, is the banishment by the Emperor Maximinus of Pontianus to Sardinia, which took place, according to the Liberian catalogue, while Severus and Quintinus were consuls; that is, in the year 235. The duration of Pontianus’ episcopate is shown by a comparison of the best sources to have been a little over five years (see chap. 23, note 3). This brings us to the year 230 as the date of Urban’s death.

According to chap. 23, Urban was bishop eight years, and with this the Liberian catalogue agrees, so that this figure is far better supported than the figure nine given by the Chron. Accepting eight years as the duration of Urban’s episcopate, we are brought back to 222 as the date of his accession, which agrees with Eusebius’ statement in this chapter (see the previous note). There are extant Acta S. Urbani, which are accepted as genuine by the Bollandists, and assigned to the second century, but they cannot have been written before the fifth, and are historically quite worthless. For a good discussion of his supposed connection with St. Cecilia, which has played such an important part in ecclesiastical legend, see the article Urbanus in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. We have no certain knowledge of his life and character.

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Edition note 5

Elagabalus was slain in March, 222, after a reign of three years and nine months, and was succeeded by his cousin, Alexianus Bassianus, who assumed the names Marcus Aurelius Alexander Severus, by the last two of which he is commonly known.

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Edition note 6

Philetus, according to the Chron. (Armenian), became bishop in the sixth year of Caracalla (216), and was succeeded by Zebinus in the sixth year of Alexander Severus (227). Jerome puts his accession into the reign of Macrinus (217–218), and the accession of Zebinus into the seventh year of Alexander (228). The accession of Zebinus must have taken place at least as early as 231 (see chap. 23, note 4), and there remains therefore no reason to doubt the approximate accuracy of the latter dates. If the dates given for Philetus’ accession (216–218) be approximately correct, we must understand the words “at this time” of the present chapter, to refer back to the reign of Macrinus, or the accession of Alexander Severus, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.

This does not seem natural, but we cannot say it is impossible. Knowing the unreliability of the dates given in the Chron. , we are compelled to leave the matter undecided. He is called by the Armen. Philip, by Syncellus φίλητος ἢ φίλιππος . The latter assigns him an episcopate of eight years, which agrees with none of the figures given by the two versions of the Chronicle or by the History . We know nothing about the person or the life of Philetus.

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Edition note 7

On Asclepiades, see chap. 11, note 6.

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Edition note 8

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