Church History Books 1–9 (trans.) 4 part 2/2

But the people, astounded at the wonder of the miracle, departed amazed. [It behooves us] to love and venerate [Christ our Lord], as those keeping our faith whole to our master and Lord, of whom we too desire to be partakers in faith and in the perseverance of charity. But when the centurion saw the so obstinate contention of the Jews, he burned up that body set in the midst; and thus afterward we gathered his charred bones—dearer than the most precious gems and more estimable than all gold, made [precious] through fire—and, as was fitting, according to custom laid them away. In which place even now, the Lord granting, [we keep] solemn [festivals]. And when we also celebrate the memorials of those who suffered before, [it is] that the minds of those who follow may be roused by distinguished examples to the way of their predecessors.

Thus far concerning the blessed Polycarp, with whom also twelve others, coming from Philadelphia, were consummated in martyrdom at Smyrna. But in the same letter there was also contained an interwoven narrative concerning very many other martyrs of the same time. Among whom it is reported that, after Polycarp, a certain Metrodorus too, a presbyter of the Marcionite heresy, was delivered to the fire.

But among the rest who, in that same period, [teaching and disputing openly, in the sight of all men,] became martyrs, there is reported there a most famous man, a certain Pionius by name; whose constancy of answers through the several interrogations, and his orations to the people on behalf of our faith, and how undaunted he ever stood before the judges, teaching and disputing even in the very tribunals, and how he gave his right hand [to be bound], and, placed in prison, how he strengthened the minds of the brethren who came in to him for the endurance of martyrdom, and what tortures he himself too endured for martyrdom, and how he was fastened with nails and set upon a burning pyre, and how amid these he made a blessed end of his life—if anyone wishes, [seeing that a fuller account] is set forth, he will learn more fully.

After these things there are also recounted the deeds of other martyrs at Pergamum, a city of Asia: of a certain Carpus and Papirius and Agathonice, a most excellent woman, and of many others who, for the sake of blessed hope, endured their contest. Justin, when he had presented to the judges of that time the second book which he had written in defense of our religion, received the recompense of a faithful and learned tongue, the gift of martyrdom, through a certain philosopher named Crescens, a dog as much in his profession as in his morals; for amid the very snares of his tricks Justin had not only prevailed over him with the man in dispute, but, the truth strongly supporting him, had confounded him the more vehemently, whence too he received from the Lord the palm of his victory, namely martyrdom.

That this would come to pass in this way, the blessed man himself, the true philosopher, plainly foretold with prophetic mind, just as it was to happen, in that defense which we said above was written by him. 'For I too,' he says, 'expect to suffer ambush from one of those against whom I stand for the truth; I expect to be struck with a staff or a club'; a lover not of wisdom but of vainglory. For it is not fitting that he be called a philosopher who publicly makes assertions about things he does not know, and says that Christians are without God and impious, to gratify the favor and pleasure of those whom, being themselves set in error, he entangles in still greater snares of error.

He is most worthless, and far more worthless than the unlearned, since even the unlearned or simple take care not to dare to dispute about things they do not know, nor to bear witness concerning things of which they have no knowledge. But if he did read what is written among us, and either did not understand its power, or indeed understood it, he is to be judged the more detestable, who, courting the favor of the ignorant multitude, becomes the enemy and betrayer of the very truth and piety which he approves. For know that I set before him certain questions, from his answers to which he was convicted of knowing nothing. And so true are the things I say that it is most surely discerned that he is utterly ignorant of the things that are ours.

But if these things have not yet come to your notice, I am ready once more to give you a hearing of them. These are the words of the blessed Justin, in accordance with which, just as he had foretold, he was consummated in martyrdom through the ambush of Crescens. Tatian too, a most learned man, in his early years taught rhetoric with great admiration and from it had sought no small glory; afterward he left it behind in remembrance, in a work in which he mentions Justin with these words: 'But the admirable man Justin,' he says, 'quite rightly pursued the matter.' And after a little, when he had said certain things about the philosophers, he adds also this: '[Crescens] surpassed all men in debaucheries, and in greed for money was inferior to none.'

But while he urged that death, along with other things, was to be despised, he himself held so evil an opinion of it that he handed Justin over to death as though to the ultimate evil, because, in preaching the truth, he had exposed the voluptuous; and martyrs had arisen even before him. Describing these contests, in the first book of his defense he says: 'A certain woman was joined to a base husband; she, having herself first been reformed, sought also to persuade her husband concerning chastity, suggesting to him that it is written in the precepts of the Christians that eternal punishments threaten those who in their life have despised chastity and justice. But he, persisting in obscenity, by his very deeds was making his wife estranged from himself, since the woman deemed it a sacrilege to remain in the wedlock and fellowship of such a husband.'

But he, after these things having set out for Alexandria, when he was reported to be conducting himself yet more basely and to be gaining greater increases of an unchaste life, so that he was reckoned a most shameful man, she gave him a bill of divorce and departed. Her husband, who ought rather to have rejoiced that his wife's chastity had so advanced that she could not only commit nothing base herself but could not even patiently endure her husband's baseness, from whom she sought amendment in vain, accused his wife on the score of her very chastity: 'She is a Christian,' he said. And she indeed presented a petition to you, O emperor, asking that first she be permitted to set her household affairs in order, and then afterward answer the charges; and this you granted.

But the husband, since he could not accuse the woman, turned his attack against a certain Ptolemaeus. He had as a friend a certain centurion; him he persuaded to inquire of Ptolemaeus whether he was a Christian. Ptolemaeus, as a lover of the truth, by no means denied the glory of his profession... it is this: 'And I too,' he says, 'expect to suffer ambush from one of those against whom I have stood for the truth,' and the rest. This man has left us very many monuments of his studies, from which we may gather the tokens of his learned soul, given over to divine disciplines; in them those who bear a love of learning and knowledge can find very great profit.

There exists, then, this book of his, of which we made mention above, written to Antoninus, who was called Pius, and to his son and the senate, in defense of our religion. But there is also a second no less containing a defense of our faith, which he writes to the successor of the aforesaid prince, Antoninus Verus, whose times we have now begun to set forth. There is also another book against the pagans, in which he treats of individual matters; there too he discusses certain things about the nature of demons, which it would be too long to insert here. There is likewise another book against the pagans, which is entitled 'Confutation.' And there is another of his, 'On Monarchy,' which he wove together not only from our books but also from the volumes of the Greeks.

There is another, entitled 'The Psalmist,' and another as it were in the manner of scholia, 'On the Soul,' in which he inserted various questions from those which are debated among the philosophers of the Greeks, promising that he would refute them and set forth his own opinion about these matters in the volume of his response. He also composed a dialogue as though with the Jews, which he held at Ephesus with Trypho, a most noble teacher of the Hebrews, in which he expounds how he himself was led through divine grace to belief in the true faith, though beforehand he had borne an immense zeal toward the disciplines of the philosophers; and how they act against the Church of Christ with deadly ambushes.

And on account of these things he charges that not only did you fail to repent of the things wickedly done by you, but you even chose men fit for this from Jerusalem and sent them throughout all the earth, to go about and declare that an impious heresy of the Christians had arisen, and at the same time to spread abroad certain criminal slanders against us, so that thereby the ignorant, being terrified, might shun our fellowship. In which you brought reproach not only upon yourselves but also upon others... [and that this heresy] flourished in the churches. He also affirms that the Apocalypse of John the apostle is genuine. He likewise employs certain prophetic testimonies to Trypho, convicting him on the point that the Jews had cut these away from the Scriptures and taken them away.

But many other of his works also are circulated among very many of the brethren, which one may find him taking up. In the fourth book against heresies he says this concerning these matters: 'And well,' he says, 'did Justin pursue the point in that volume which he writes against Marcion, saying that he would never have acquiesced to the Lord himself.' And again in the fifth book of the same work he says: 'And most excellently,' he says, 'does Justin affirm that before the coming of the Lord Satan never dared to blaspheme God, seeing that he did not yet know his own condemnation.' But let these things be said by us of necessity concerning the works of Justin, to stir up any studious among the faithful to the inquiry into his books. On the death of Anicetus in his episcopate, Soter succeeded him.

At Alexandria the sixth from the apostles held the pontificate of the church. At Antioch, fourth after Heron had been Cornelius, after whom in the fifth grade Heros had succeeded. There was one among the bishops in Crete, and Philip too, and Apollinaris and Melito and Musanus and Modestus, and above all Irenaeus, of all of whom the most illustrious monuments of the apostolic faith and of sound doctrine have come down even to us. He sets forth the tenor of his faith most fully with its proof, and indicates this also, that when he went to the city of Rome, having met very many bishops throughout the several places in discourse and in charity, he found them all preachers and teachers of the same faith.

At the same time, concerning the epistle of Clement also, he says: 'And the church of the Corinthians remained in right preaching up to Primus the bishop, whom, sailing to Rome, I saw, and I stayed with him at Corinth many days, delighted by the purity of his faith. But when I had come to Rome, I remained there until Anicetus.' Soter succeeded Anicetus, and Eleutherus succeeded Soter.

'But in all these ordinations, or in the others which I had seen throughout the remaining cities, all things were held just as the law handed down from of old, and the prophets indicated, and the Lord taught.' Likewise the same man also says concerning the heretics who arose in his own time: 'And after James, who is surnamed the Just, was made a martyr—just as the Lord himself also rendered testimony to the truth—by divine election Symeon the son of Cleopas is ordained bishop, chosen by all because he was a cousin of the Lord. And for this reason the church was then called a virgin, because it had not yet been corrupted by the stealthy insinuation of an adulterine word.'

But a certain Theobutes, because he had merited rejection from the episcopate, himself began from the outset to throw all things into disorder and to corrupt them, being one constituted from among the seven heresies among the people. Of these was also Simon, from whom the Simonians; Cleobius, whence the Cleobians; and Dositheus, whence the Dositheans; and Gorthaeus, whence the Gorthaeni; and Masbutheus, whence the Masbutheni; and also the Menandrians derived from these, and the Marcionists and Carpocratians and Valentinians and Basilidians and Saturnians—each of whom, composing his own schism apart by diverse corruptions of the faith, had his own sect and his own followers.

From these there proceeded false Christs and false prophets and false apostles, who, rending the unity of the brethren into diverse parts, by the corruption of doctrine defiled the chaste bed of the church, speaking impiety against the Lord and against His Christ. The same writer also designates through these words the ancient heresies of the Jews, what and how many they were:

'There were,' he says, 'diverse opinions among the circumcision, that is, among the sons of Israel... there were therefore Essaeans, Galileans, Hemerobaptists, Masbutheans, Samaritans, Sadducees and Pharisees.' He writes very many other things also, of which, according to the opportunity of the several places, we have already in part made mention in the foregoing. He also discoursed in the Hebrew tongue and made mention of Jewish traditions, whereby he indicates that he himself came to the faith of Christ from among the Hebrews. Moreover this very man, and Irenaeus, and the whole chorus of the ancients, called the book entitled 'Wisdom' the work of Solomon, just as also the Proverbs and the rest.

Concerning the apostolic see... he had in the word of God; and not only those peoples whom he had received to rule enjoyed his ministry, but also those set far off, to whom through epistles he made himself present, as it were, teaching most flourishingly about faith, and about peace and unanimity; and another epistle to the Athenians, in which he invites and rouses the more sluggish to belief in the gospel, and at the same time reproves certain ones as though almost fallen away from the faith, since their bishop Publius had been consummated in martyrdom. He also mentions... that by his labor and industry a certain warmth of faith was revived and restored among them.

And this too he indicates in the same epistle, that Dionysius the Areopagite, who, instructed by the apostle Paul, believed in Christ—according to those things which are set forth in the Acts of the apostles—was the first bishop at Athens. There is an epistle to the Nicomedians, in which he assails the heresy of Marcion and establishes the rule of ecclesiastical faith with wondrous balance. He writes also another to the church of the Gortynians and at the same time to the other churches of Crete, in which he commends their bishop Philip as a man of great virtues and of the best pursuits.

He writes also another epistle to the church of the Amastrians and to the other churches of Pontus with it, in which he mentions Bacchylides and Elpistus, as those who had exhorted him to write, and he explains many things in it from the divine Scriptures, and at the same time makes mention of their bishop by name, Palmas. But he also orders that those rising again and turning themselves from sin, even if they recoil from heretical perversity, are to be received. There is joined to these another epistle of his to the Cnossians, in which he admonishes and beseeches their bishop Pinytus not to lay heavy burdens upon the necks of the disciples, nor to enjoin upon the brethren the necessity of enforced chastity, lest in this the weakness of some be imperiled.

To which Pinytus, writing back to Dionysius, indeed embraces the counsel of the better opinion, and at the same time entreats him, after those things which he had first written, henceforth to send writings of more robust and stronger food, whereby the people of his church might be nourished unto a better progress, lest, ever clinging to the food of milk, they draw out the life of little ones in a body already growing old. And at the same time Pinytus, in this epistle, has left us as in a certain mirror the living image of himself: the tokens of his upright faith, and the solicitude which he expends upon the care of his flock, and of the erudition and wisdom of the divine word.

Of Dionysius there is also carried down another epistle given to the Romans, addressed to bishop Soter, in which he indicates that he has gladly embraced the institutions handed down of old to be kept in the Roman church: 'For from the beginning,' he says, 'it has been your custom to aid all the brethren with various benefits, and to send to many churches which are throughout the diverse regions of the earth all things of which they have need, and in all things to console the necessities of individuals, and even to provide to the brethren banished to the mines what their use requires. This the Roman church has been accustomed to do from the beginning, by an institution of this kind left to it by the fathers and always kept whole and entire. But your blessed bishop Soter not only preserved what the fathers had handed down, but even increased it for the better.'

They strove not only for the saints; but as the heretics were staining the seed of God and defiling the threshing-floors of apostolic doctrine with an adulterine admixture, the priests of the Lord, like watchful husbandmen, labored on every side to shake out and to purge away their evil seeds, and, like anxious shepherds, to drive off with their outcries the wolves lying in wait for the flocks of Christ—barking even at those set far off, and sometimes also, wherever they had caught them at close quarters, pressing them hard face to face and casting them down in the wrestling of words and the contest of disputations; while still others, taking thought for posterity, refuted their questions and perverse objections by published commentaries. Among these, one is shown, from what we have read, to have engaged Marcion in disputation.

To this one, then, the seventh from the apostles in the see of the Antiochene church... And Philip too, whom I said above was bishop of the Gortynian church... having uncovered the covering of wickedness with which his deceptions and fallacies were veiled, they likewise presented to the Roman emperor apologetic books written most brilliantly in defense of our faith. How great are the monuments of these that have been left, which have come down even to our knowledge, is shown below.

Of Melito there are two books On the Pasch, one book On the Best Manner of Life; but these are the chapter-headings of a single work, which Jerome paraphrases wrongly; On the Body, On the Obedience of Faith, On the Senses, On Soul and Body and Mind, On the Bath, On Truth, likewise On Faith, On the Generation of Christ and On His Prophecy; likewise On Soul and Body, On Hospitality, likewise the book entitled 'The Key,' and after all the rest a book To Antoninus Verus. In his little book On the Pasch, intimating also the time at which he was writing, he speaks thus: 'Under Servillius,'

'he says, Paulus being proconsul of Asia, at which time Sagaris was crowned with martyrdom, a great question arose at Laodicea.' Clement of Alexandria too makes mention of this same little book in his work, where he writes about the reckoning of the Pasch, which, he says, he writes on the occasion of this very little book which had earlier been published by Melito. But in that book which he writes to the emperor, he records certain such things: 'What has never happened,' he says, 'the race of the pious now suffers persecution. They are put to flight on every side by new decrees promulgated throughout all Asia.'

'For shameless and slanderous men, who long to seize what belongs to others, having taken occasion from the imperial precepts... And if indeed they do these things at your bidding, let us believe it to be good—whatever is done at the command of a just emperor. Nay, we too willingly bear the death which we know to be inflicted by you. But this alone is what we beseech of you: that you yourself first make inquiry into the ministers of this insolence, and, if these deaths which they inflict have been commanded by you, that you yourself examine the matter; but if this so monstrous a precept proceeds not even from your own conscience...' And again, after a little, he adds also this: 'For indeed this philosophy which we practice first flourished among the barbarians.'

'But it was introduced also into your Roman way of life in the times of Augustus, from which time the summit of your empire ascended the more sublimely, being raised up under the auspices of this observance. Of that empire, thus happily propagated, you are the happy successor, and you happily preserve, together with your son, what has been handed down to you. Wherefore guard also, with equal reverence, the rite of our philosophy, which was handed down to you together with the empire, as that which by its own entrance brought to your fathers the cause of prosperity.'

'And the faith which grew up together with the felicities of Augustus himself, do you also, now reigning, preserve whole and undiminished; for to Augustus himself, neither at its entrance nor in its progress, did anything sad befall, but on the contrary all things joyful and all things full of great successes, while the worshippers of this religion besought the most high God for the state of his empire. Nor did any of the princes, save Nero alone and Domitian, at the promptings of wicked men, set themselves against our doctrine; and it is from their time that it came about that we are defamed by false calumnies.'

'But their error, which had come from ignorance, your fathers corrected, who by frequent decrees afterward took vengeance upon those who dared to inflict any trouble of this kind upon the worshippers. Among these, your grandfather Hadrian gave letters concerning this to many other judges, but especially to Fundanus proconsul of Asia. And your father, ruling the pinnacle of the Roman realm together with you, sent edicts concerning these things to all cities generally, but especially to the people of Larissa and the Thessalonians and the Athenians. But we believe that you preserve the same judgment much more, nay, we are confident that you will provide much more clemently, as one who exists a lover of true philosophy and pure religion.'

These and many other things nobly written by him are contained in the little book of which we made mention. But in those things which he writes concerning the explanation of the Scriptures, he enumerates, as it were in a preface, what are the volumes of the Old Testament that ought to be observed in the canon. This portion of Scripture... 'Melito to his brother Onesimus, greeting. Since indeed you have frequently asked me, out of the zeal you have toward the word of God, that I excerpt for you testimonies from the law and the prophets concerning the Savior and concerning our faith, and at the same time indicate what is the order and number of the volumes of the Old Testament, I have gladly fulfilled your request, knowing what a zeal for learning is in you, and how great a devotion of faith, so that out of longing for eternal life you prefer nothing before it.'

'Know, therefore, that I went as far as that place in the East where the beginning of our preaching took its origin, and where all those things were done which are read as written; and there I diligently made inquiry concerning all things, as to what were the volumes of the Old Testament. There, then, what I ascertained with all investigation, these are they: the five books of Moses—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; then next Joshua son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, the four books of Kingdoms, the two books of Chronicles, the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon. The prophets, moreover: Isaiah, Jeremiah, the one book of the twelve prophets, Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra. From these, therefore, I have transmitted to you the selections also, that is, testimonies excerpted and arranged in six books.'

Concerning the monuments of Melito we have ascertained these things which have come down. There is an apologetic book written to the aforesaid emperor, and five books against the pagans, two books On Truth, and those which he afterward published against the Cataphrygians—that is, against Montanus and his false prophetesses, who then first began to deviate from the right path—a little book written with much elegance to certain brethren who had turned aside. 'But neither do they accept the Acts of the apostles. Nevertheless their earlier author, Tatian, making a certain collation of the gospels, composed—I know not how—one gospel out of four, which he named the Diatessaron, and which even now is held by many.'

It is said also that he altered some things from the discourses of the apostle, as one who wished to amend the order and composition of the words. This same man, moreover, left behind an infinite number of books. But that one which he wrote against the gentiles is approved as the chief and most useful of all his writings. Through the same period, with innumerable heresies sprouting up everywhere, and especially in Mesopotamia, a certain Bardesanes, a most eloquent man in the language of the Syrians and a vehement dialectician, wrote dialogues against Marcion and certain others, which he published composed in his own tongue. But many other volumes of his also survive, which his disciples turned into the Greek speech.

For he was so mighty in word and doctrine, and so strong in disputations, that he had very many and noble men as his followers. There is also his most powerful dialogue to Antoninus, On Fate. He wrote also many other works, which proved sufficiently useful and highly necessary in the times of the persecutions that then were. They say, moreover, that this very man was at first of the school of Valentinus; but when he had marked his master as a master of error and had refuted his foolish fables, he seemed to himself to have converted to a better and right opinion of the faith. Yet he did not wholly lay aside the filth and stain of the old errors. And in those same times too, Soter, bishop of the Roman church, made an end of his living.

How many, and in what manner, under Severus in Gaul suffered for piety's sake. How the martyrs, so long as they were kept in life, all who were in the persecution... How the martyrs attend Irenaeus with their commendation. How, under Marcus Aurelius Caesar, by the prayers of our people... An enumeration of the bishops who were at Rome. How, even up to those times, miracles were wrought through the faithful. How Irenaeus set forth the canon of the divine Scriptures. Concerning the schism which was made under Blastus at Rome. What things are reported concerning Montanus and the other false prophets.