So great, moreover, is the multitude of believing men and women reported to have been gathered together at the first entrance [of Mark], by the example of his sobriety and continence, that [a description of them] was given by that most eloquent man Philo — whom tradition holds to have come to Rome in the times of the emperor Claudius, and to have seen the apostle Peter, and to have attached himself to the conversations of him who preached the word of God. Which is very probable, since even that writing which we have mentioned embraces things established from the later [ordinances] of the church, which both were then handed down and to the present day are kept by us. But he also describes to the very life the manner of life of the abstinent — namely of those who now live in the churches or in monasteries.
Whence it is most plainly disclosed that he not only knew the things which are ours, [but that] the apostolic men, chiefly believers of Hebrew descent, so far as can be understood [observed these customs]; since indeed it is agreed that those who under the apostles believed from among the Israelites, still [held fast] to Jewish institutions and to the observance of the law, whether he added [it] from without, but first of all he says that those men are called "cultivators" (worshipers) and the women with them "cultivatresses" (worshipers).
The reason, moreover, for this name [is drawn] either from the fact that they cultivated the souls of those who came to them, as though rude and rustic; or because, toward the worship of God, [they gathered together] with a pure and whole conscience — [it makes no difference] whether truly in the beginnings those were so called who lived according to the Gospel, before the appellation of Christians was diffused through every place; provided that from the very facts the name be proved [to belong] to those to whom it pertains. He says, therefore, first of all, that they renounce all [their] goods [and], to those whom it concerns, yield [them up].
Then next, that they also cast far away all the cares of life, and, having gone out of the city, dwell in little gardens or in any small tiny fields, fleeing the fellowship of those of unequal purpose and the companionship of a dissimilar life, knowing these to be a hindrance to those who strive after the arduous [good]. [Those] who first [believed] are recorded to have led [such a] life, just as we plainly read written in the Acts of the Apostles: that all who believed under the apostles, selling their possessions and estates, laid the prices before the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each, according as was needful, so that there was not one [in want]. [As for those] who believed at Alexandria, just as those who had believed before at Jerusalem, it is certain that the same conduct and the same institution designate, without doubt, the same faith of religion also.
Finally, in the very book of which [we spoke] above — for it behooved every part of Greece and every barbarian land to become a partaker of this perfect good. In Egypt, however, there is a greater abundance of them throughout each several territory, but especially around Alexandria. For all the best men from all places, as though hastening to the glebe of a fertile fatherland, [betake themselves to a place] conveniently situated above a lake whose name is Maria, gently and mildly raised up upon certain little hills, at once for defense and for the temperateness of the air. After these things, having described their dwellings, [he sets forth] how the [manner of life] of each one stands; for [it is a] philosophy.
They are steeped in the laws of the fathers (drawn out into an allegorical understanding). "There is, moreover," he says, "in each several place a house consecrated to prayer" — which in [their own] tongue can signify "an assembly of honorable men" — "into which, withdrawing," he says, "they celebrate the mysteries of an honorable and chaste life, bringing in there absolutely nothing that pertains to food or drink or to the other ministries of the human body, but only the books of the law and the volumes of the prophets, hymns also to God and other things similar to these, in the disciplines and exercises of which, being instructed, [they aspire] to the perfect and blessed life by unremitting zeal." From the rising of the day even to the evening, all their span [of time] is spent in the exercises of studies, by which they are imbued with the divine philosophy through the sacred letters, drawing out the laws of the fathers into an allegorical understanding.
For [they hold] that those things which [are contained] in the law are forms and images of the divine mystery. They have, moreover, also certain disputations and interpretations of the men of old, who were even the authors of that [sect], who are agreed to have handed down to them the norm of allegorical and figural understanding in very many monuments of their writings; of which [the first, as it were, ...]. But it is certain that this man said these things concerning the evangelical and apostolic books, in which is taught how the law and the prophecy ought to be understood spiritually.
After a little, again also concerning this, that they compose new psalms to God, [fitting] them all to [both] honorable meters and sounds. Many other things too he enumerates in the same book, which are practiced by our people either in the church or in the monasteries. But we must hasten to tell, out of all, those things which properly contain the ecclesiastical form, from which it ought to be manifest to anyone that [these things] pertain to the church. "Continence, moreover, they place first in the soul as a kind of foundation, and so at length they proceed to build the remaining virtues upon this. Food and drink none of them takes before the setting of the sun, that is, joining the time of light with the pursuits of philosophy, but the care of the body with the night."
"But some even come to the partaking of food only after three days — those, namely, whom a more voracious hunger of studies urges on. Indeed those who dwell amid the erudition of wisdom and in the deeper understanding of the sacred volumes, gaping after them as after copious banquets, cannot be satisfied, and by gazing are more keenly inflamed, so that not even on the fourth [day nor on the sixth do they take food]." That Philo relates these things concerning the institutions of our people, who can doubt? But if to anyone it still seems doubtful, we shall adduce also other sayings of his, which can suit absolutely no one but only our people, [and this] even to the most unbelieving. "With the men, moreover, of whom we speak, there are also women."
"Among whom many are already aged virgins, keeping the integrity of a chaste body not by any necessity, but by devotion, since they long to consecrate themselves to the pursuits of wisdom not only in soul but also in body, deeming it unworthy to enslave to lust a vessel prepared for the receiving of wisdom, and to bring forth a mortal offspring — those women, by whom the holy and immortal embrace of the divine word is sought, from which a posterity is left behind in no way subject to mortal corruption." But if even this still seems too little, hear what after a while he writes:
"The treatises, moreover, of the sacred volumes," he says, "are of this kind, that they may rather employ allegorical opinions; since indeed the whole law seems to these men to be like a living creature, which has for its body, as it were, the letter itself and the things which are designated according to the letter, but for its soul the hidden, spiritual, and invisible sense concealed in the letter — which they, taught by their authors, contemplate more sublimely and more nobly, as though beholding it through a mirror; and from the very names [they draw certain] admirable [understandings]." But what need is there to add to these also what he writes concerning their assemblies — how the men gather separately, and separately the women too in the same places; and how they keep vigils, as it is the custom to do among us, and especially on those days when we are wont to observe the solemnity of the Lord's passion?
All which the aforesaid man has set forth in the same order and the same sequence in which they are carried out among us. And [he tells] how one out of them all, rising up in the midst, chants a psalm in honorable modes, and how to him who leads off the whole multitude responds with a single verse, and [joins] in [the singing]. Into wine, indeed, no one at all, as he himself says, so much as with a taste comes in contact, nor any flesh whatsoever; but water alone is their cup, and bread with salt or hyssop their food.
He adds further to these how the priests or ministers should discharge their offices, and what above all is the episcopal office; we have shown from what source he ought to draw these things, in which the man aforesaid treated the beginnings of ecclesiastical instruction and the origin of the apostolic and evangelical teaching. This same Philo is indeed most copious in eloquence, most subtle in the meaning of the divine Scriptures, finding much and expressing still more. In short, he has dedicated to us many monuments of his own godlike genius, a figurative exposition of the sacred Law. Then he composed others as well, and he both propounds and resolves the questions and their solutions which he entitled 'On Genesis and Exodus.'
There are also other books of his which are entitled 'Of Propositions,' being two on husbandry and two on drunkenness. But very many other books of his likewise survive, noted under various titles, such as: On Tongues; On Nature and Discovery; On the Things That Ought to Be Gathered for Instruction; Who It Is That Is Heir of Divine Things; What Is the Division of Equal and Unequal Things. Likewise, On the Three Virtues Which Moses Described Along With the Rest. Likewise, On Those Whose Names Are Changed in the Scriptures; and also On the First and Second Covenants.
There is also another book of his On Captivity; and On the Life of the Wise Man, of him who was made perfect according to perfect justice and the laws of nature; On the Giants; On That the Divine Is Unchangeable; On the Life of Moses, five books; five books of Questions and Solutions on Exodus; On the Tabernacle and the Ten Words of the Law; On the Things Brought In Under the Form of the Decalogue; On the Animals Appointed for Sacrifices, and What Are the Kinds of Sacrifices; and What Rewards Are Set Before the Good in the Law and What Curses Before the Evil. Then besides these his separate books: On Providence; On the Jews; That Dumb Animals Have Reason; That Everyone Who Sins Is a Slave.
Likewise another, That Everyone Is Free Who Gives Himself to Good Pursuits; On the Contemplative Life, or Of the Suppliants—this very work, in which we have taught, as written above, that its subjects are apostolic men. There are also his interpretations... Having set out for Rome in the days of the emperor Gaius, when he had written very many things about the impiety and impurity of Gaius, which by irony he entitled 'On the Virtues,' and had recited them to the Senate, he is said to have been held in such admiration that his books were placed in the libraries. ...the preaching of the Lord's word being ministered as far as Illyricum, the emperor Claudius drives the Jews out of the city.
Then Aquila and Priscilla, expelled with the rest of the Jews, come to Asia, and there attach themselves to the Apostle who was then first laying the foundations of the church there, as the book of the Acts of the Apostles teaches. ...At the Passover so great a disturbance and devastation befell the Jews at Jerusalem, from a sedition that was stirred up, that of those alone who were killed at the gates of the temple through the crush of the people, thirty thousand Jews were counted. And Josephus in these words describes the evils that were inflicted.
'He appointed... and sent Felix as procurator of the whole province, of Samaria too and of Galilee and of the region called Beyond the Jordan.' Moreover a most bitter sedition was kindled by the chief priests against the priests and leading men of the people of Jerusalem; each of these, seeking out for himself a band of ruined youths and men delighting in revolution, set himself up as leader of his own faction. As they clashed with one another... there was no one to restrain them, but everything was done as in a city that has no ruler. And so the chief priests came to such insolence that, sending their servants to the threshing floors, they seized the tithes owed to the priests.
And it came to pass that some of the lesser priests [perished]... And sometimes even in the midst of the city, meeting one another, they slaughtered them; especially on feast days the assassins, mingled with the crowds, roamed about with hidden daggers, and whenever anyone marked out fell in with them at close quarters, they slew him. And by this wicked craft, when the man they had laid low with a secret wound had fallen, those very murderers would feign indignation... and their hidden crimes remained concealed. And first of all Jonathan the high priest is slain by them; after him very many are butchered, so that now the fear of death was heavier than death itself, since each man, as though ever poised for battle, at every single moment expected to be killed.
...a certain false prophet who, having come to Judaea, a man and a magician, won for himself credit as a prophet by magic art, and forthwith gathering some thirty thousand men and leading them through the desert, arrived with them at [the city]... to hold the city by force, and at the same time to subject to his tyranny the Roman garrisons and the populace, relying in all things upon the followers he had led out with him. But Felix forestalled his attempt, and going at once to meet him with armed men, while the rest of the people conspired with him, in the encounter—some being killed, others taken—he easily quenched what had been rashly begun. These things Josephus reports in the second book of his Histories.
It is worthwhile, however, to compare what he writes about the Egyptian with what is set down in the Acts of the Apostles, where, under Felix, the tribune who at Jerusalem [addressed Paul] says: 'Are you not that Egyptian who before these days stirred up the people and led out into the desert four thousand men of the assassins?' But let this suffice concerning Felix.
...he goes to Rome, Aristarchus accompanying him, whom accordingly in his epistles he calls his fellow-prisoner; and also Luke, who describes his acts and those of the other apostles, but chiefly of Paul, concerning whom he noted this at the end: that for two years, established in the city of Rome, he was preaching the word of God [under] Nero. And the account confirms that he set out again to the office of preaching, and after this once more returned to the aforesaid city, where he was consummated in martyrdom. At that time, being placed in chains, he was writing his second epistle to Timothy, in which he speaks both of his first defense and of his approaching end. 'In my first defense,' says Paul himself, 'no one stood by me, but all forsook me. May it not be laid to their charge.'
'For the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, that through me the preaching might be fulfilled and all the nations might hear, and I was delivered'—that through him the preaching that had been begun might be completed; 'he was delivered from the mouth of the lion,' signifying Nero by the lion, on account of his cruelty. Then in what follows he adds and says: 'The Lord delivered me from the mouth of the lion.' For he foresaw in the Spirit his own consummation, wherefore also '[The Lord will deliver] me from every evil work and will save me into his heavenly kingdom,' signifying by these things that he was straightway to be crowned with martyrdom. Concerning which, however, he speaks yet more plainly in the same epistle, writing:
'For I,' he says, 'am now being offered up, and the time of my departure is at hand.' Now these things have been said by us to show that Paul was not martyred at that time when Luke concluded Paul's acts in the city of Rome. For it could have been that in the beginning Nero was still milder and received Paul's defense on behalf of our doctrine not disdainfully, but that in the course of time, when together with his other evils his [cruelty was increased even against the apostles]... [Paul] was transmitted from Festus; and seeing frustrated the plots they had aimed at him, they turn the monstrousness of their wickedness against James the brother of the Lord, upon whom the episcopal seat at Jerusalem had been conferred by the apostles, and whom they demand before all the people.
But he, against the expectation of all, with a voice quite free and far bolder than they wished, before the whole people and with all confidence professes that the Son of God is our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. Then they, unable to bear so weighty and so free a testimony of the man—chiefly because he was reckoned the most righteous of all men for the merits of his religious and most self-controlled life—turn to his death, the occasion of the moment favoring them by reason of the governor's death. For it happened that Festus died in Judaea about that same time, and the province was without governor and prince.
For the manner of James's death has already been indicated by us above, in the discourses of Clement, where he describes him as cast down from the pinnacle of the temple and struck with a fuller's club. More precisely, however, Hegesippus—who came immediately after those very first successions of the apostles—reports concerning him in the fifth book of his Commentaries in these words: 'James the brother of the Lord,' he says, 'received the church together with the apostles, he who was surnamed the Just by all, enduring from the times of the Lord himself even down to us. And many indeed were called James, but this one was holy from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, nor did he eat any living thing; no iron came upon his head; he was not anointed with oil, nor did he use the baths.'
'To him alone was it permitted to enter into the holy of holies. For neither did he wear a woolen garment, but only fine linen. He alone entered the temple and would lie upon his knees, praying for the people, so that his knees grew hard as a camel's from always bending the knee and never ceasing from prayer. And so, for his incredible self-control and supreme righteousness, he was called Just and Oblias, which is interpreted 'bulwark of the people and righteousness,' just as the prophets also declared concerning him. Now certain men of the seven heresies which were among the people, of which we wrote above, asked him what was the door of Jesus. But he said that this one was the Savior. And of these some believed that Jesus is the Christ.'
'But those heresies which we mentioned above believed neither that he had risen nor that he would come to render to each according to his works. But those who believed, believed through James. And since among them many even of the rulers had believed, there was a commotion of the Jews and the scribes and the Pharisees, who said: "Nothing now remains but that the whole people should believe in Jesus, that he is the Christ." Coming together therefore to James, they said to him: "We beseech you to recall the people, for behold, it is going astray after Jesus, thinking that he is the Christ. We beg you therefore to persuade all... concerning you both we and the people bear witness that you are righteous and that you show partiality to no one."'
'You therefore persuade the people concerning Jesus, that it may not go astray, for we all obey you. Ascend therefore to the high place of the pinnacle of the temple, that, set on high, you may appear to all and your words may be heard by all; for in the days of the Passover there gathers a multitude not only of the Jews but also of the Gentiles.' So the aforesaid scribes and Pharisees set James upon the pinnacle of the temple, and crying out to him with a loud voice they say: 'Most righteous of men, whom we all ought to obey, since the people goes astray after Jesus who was crucified, declare to us what is the door of Jesus.' Then James answered them with a mighty voice: 'Why do you question me about the Son of Man?
And behold, he himself sits in heaven at the right hand of the supreme Power, and he himself will come upon the clouds of heaven.' And when by this answer and testimony of James many were satisfied and had gladly heard what James avowed, they began to glorify God and to say: 'Hosanna to the Son of David.' Then again the same scribes and Pharisees began to say to one another: 'We did wrong to furnish such testimony to Jesus; but let us go up and cast this man down, that the rest may be terrified and not believe in him.' And at once they cried out with a loud voice, saying: 'Oh, oh! Even the Just one has gone astray!' And they fulfilled the scripture which is written in Isaiah, saying:
'Let us take away the Just one, since he is useless to us; therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own works.' So they went up and cast him down, and began to press upon him with stones, because, though thrown down, he not only could not die, but turning and falling upon his knees he kept saying: 'I pray you, Lord God, Father, [forgive them, for they know not what they do].' And while they were pressing with stones upon him as he prayed from below, one of the priests, of the sons of Rechab, son of Rechabim—concerning whom the prophet Jeremiah bears witness—cried out saying: 'Spare, I beg you! What are you doing? The just man prays for you, whom you are stoning!' And one of them, a fuller, snatching up the club with which they are wont to press cloth, dashed it against his skull; and by such a martyrdom he was consummated and buried in that same place near the temple.
This is he who stood forth as a witness of the truth to Jews and Gentiles, that Jesus is the Christ. And not long after, [Josephus] related that James was held so wondrous and so highly esteemed among all men for his observance of all righteousness, that even the wiser among the Jews believed this to be the cause of the siege of Jerusalem that immediately followed—namely, that they had laid wicked hands upon him. And Josephus plainly shows that it seemed so to him, in these words: 'All these things,' he says, 'befell the Jews in vengeance for James the Just, who was the brother of Jesus who is called Christ, a man most righteous and most pious by the confession of all, whom the Jews put to death.'
The same author also [records] his death in the twentieth book of the Antiquities in these words: 'Now Caesar, on learning of the death of Festus, sends Albinus as prefect of Judaea. But Ananias the younger, who, as we said above, had received the high priesthood—a man exceedingly bold and insolent in character—was upholding the heresy of the Sadducees, who in their judgments appear crueler than the rest of the Jews, as we have already shown above. This man, thinking that from the death of Festus a fit occasion for his insolence was given, convenes a session of judges and brings into the midst the brother of Jesus who is called Christ, James by name, and very many others, whom, accusing them of acting against the Law, he handed over to be stoned.'
'But if any of the citizens was more moderate and more observant of equity and law, he took this deed most grievously.' These men even secretly [sent] an embassy to Caesar... [complaining] that it was not lawful for Ananias to convene a session of judges without consulting [the governor]. And he, stirred by what was said, writes in indignation to [Ananias]... and deprived him of this honor and [set] Jesus the son of Damnaeus in his place. Thus far also concerning James, whose is that epistle which is written first among those called Catholic. It must be known, however, that by some it is not received, nor does any of the ancients easily recall seven of them. We, nevertheless, know that these too, along with the rest, are [received] by almost all... Annianus received the priesthood of the church at Alexandria.
...he had conceived wicked and impure abominations, and was now aiming even at outrage against the Divinity itself. It is a long task, and unsuited to our work, to describe his shameful deeds and crimes, especially since many have written of them more fully. From their books, if anyone wishes to know his disgraceful life, given over to all manner of wickedness, he can do so more easily. In them he will find that he advanced to such a pitch of crime that he did not spare even his own kin and household, but stood forth as both parricide and incestuous against his mother, his brothers, his wives, and all his nearest of blood.
Against all these, therefore, he turned the arms of his impiety, as Tertullian, a most noble man among writers, [attests]: 'Consult your own records; there you will find that Nero was the first who raged against this sect, especially when it was springing up at Rome... For whoever knows him can understand that nothing was condemned by Nero except some great good. Domitian too attempted it, a portion of Nero in cruelty; but, being somewhat human, he quickly checked what he had begun, even restoring those whom he had banished. Such have ever been our persecutors: unjust, impious, base.' ...he seeks the death of the very apostles first, inasmuch as they were the leaders and standard-bearers among the people of God.
And Paul indeed [was beheaded] in the very city of Rome... I think it superfluous [to prove this] from without, since the deed done is testified even to the present day by their most splendid monuments. Nevertheless, a certain Gaius, an ancient writer, also writes of these matters; he, disputing under Zephyrinus bishop of Rome against a certain Proculus, a Cataphrygian, says these things concerning the apostles: 'I,' he says, 'can point to the trophies of the apostles. For if you go by the royal road that leads to the Vatican, or by the Ostian Way, you will find [the trophies of those who founded this church].' And that both suffered at the same time, Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, when he was in the city and disputed in writings, [attests], saying that you [Romans] have joined together [the founding] of the Roman and the Corinthian church.
'For both, coming at the same time, taught in our church of the Corinthians, and, teaching together throughout all Italy and in this city, were likewise crowned with martyrdom together.' Now Josephus, writing of how great calamities overran the nation of the Jews and how their devastation was spread abroad, adds these things also: '...that he scourged every honorable man and, in the most sacred city of Jerusalem itself, fastened them to the gibbet, at that time when it befell that the state of the Jews was thrown into confusion by the workings of revolution, in the twelfth [year]...' He also relates that throughout all Syria the most atrocious savagery was exercised against the seditious Jews, so that even those who dwelt mingled with the Gentiles in the several cities were reckoned in the number of the enemy.
And you might see the cities filled with unburied bodies, the dead lying together in public, corpses cast out, and the whole province crammed with countless evils. Yet even so, far more grievously than this dire and dreadful spectacle did the fear and dread of evils to come, growing worse day by day, terrify them. These things Josephus reports word for word. But in this place concerning [the following, we treat]: In what places the apostles preached Christ. On the overthrow of the Jews after Christ. On the things foretold by Christ. How, after James, Symeon governed the church of Jerusalem. How Vespasian ordered the posterity of David to be sought out. That at Rome the second bishop was Anencletus.