CHAPTER VI
IRENAZUS' CATALOGUE OF ROMAN BISHOPS.
22.5
Va 35] tradition in the Church and the preaching of the truth has descended from the apostles unto
CHAPTER VI.
us.""
Catalogue of the Bishops of Rome.
CHAPTER VII.
"Tue blessed apostles? having founded and established the church, entrusted the office of the episcopate to Linus.?
Paul speaks of this Linus in his Epistles to Timothy.'
Anencletus* succeeded him, and after Anencletus, in the third place from the apostles, Clement® received the episcopate. He had seen and conversed with the blessed apostles,® and their preaching was still sounding in his ears, and their tradition was still before his eyes.
Nor was he alone in this, for many who had Even down to those Times Miracles were perJormed by the Faithful.
Tuese things Irenzus, in agreement with
the accounts already given by us,' records in the work which comprises five books, and to which he gave the title Refutation and Overthrow of the Knowledge Falsely So-called?
In the second book of the same treatise he shows that manifestations of divine and miraculous power continued to his time in some of the churches.
He says :®
" But so far do they come short of raising the dead, as the Lord raised them, and the apostles through prayer.
And oftentimes in the brotherhood, when, on account of some necessity, our entire Church has besought with fasting and much supplication, the spirit of the dead has returned,' and the man has been restored through the prayers of the saints."' been taught by the apostles yet survived.
Inthe times of Clement, a serious dissension having arisen among the brethren in Corinth,' the church of Rome sent a most suitable letter to the Corinthians,' reconciling them in peace, renewing their faith, and proclaiming® the doctrine lately received from the apostles."' "°
A little farther on he says :™ " Eyvarestus * succeeded Clement, and Alexander," Evarestus.
Then Xystus," the sixth from the apostles, was appointed.
After him Telesphorus," who suffered martyrdom gloriously ; then Hyginus ;" then Pius
;" and after him Anicetus; Soter" succeeded Anicetus ; and now, in the twelfth place from the apostles,
And again, after other remarks, he says:
Irenzus (successione), and which is adopted by Zimmermann, Heinichen, and Valesius (in his notes).
All the MSs. of Eusebius, followed by the majority of the editors, read 6:5axf, which, however, makes no sense in this place, and can hardly have been the original reading (see Heinichen's note z# Joco).
Eleutherus" holds the office of bishop.
In the same order and succession" the % 1 In the various passages referred to in the notes on the previous chapter.
Deady ov Kal avatpomys THs Wevdwydpouv yvwoews (cf. 1 Tim.
Vi, 20).
Rhis work of Irenzeus, which is commonly known under its Latin title, Adversus Hareses (Against Heresies), is still extant in a barbarous Latin version, of which we possess three MSS.
The original Greek is lost, though a great part of the first book can be recovered by means of extensive quotations made from it by Hip1 Namely, Peter and Paul; but neither of them founded the Roman church.
See above, Bk. II. chap. 25, note 17.
2 On Linus, see above, Bk. III. chap. 2, note 1; and for the succession of the early Roman bishops, see the same note, lytus and Epiphanius.
The work is directed against the various nostic systems, among which that of Valentinus is chiefly attacked.
The first book is devoted to a statement of their doctrines, the second to a refutation of them, and the remaining three to a presenta tion of the true doctrines of Christianity as opposed to the fals¢ ponuone of the Gnostics.
The best edition of the original is that of arvey: S. [renai libros quingue adv. Hereses., Cambr. 18
2 vols.; English translation in the A nte-Nicene Fathers, I. p. soy For the literature of the subject, see Schaff, II. p. 746 ff.
On Irenzus himself, see Book IV. chap. 21, note 9.
3 2 Tim. iv. 21.
4 On Anencletus, see above, Bk. III. chap. 13, note 3.
5 On Clement, see above, Bk. III. chap.
4, note 19.
6 Although the identification of this Clement with the one mentioned in Phil. iv. 3 is more than doubtful, yet there is no reason to doubt that, living as he did in the first conrery at Rome, he was personally acquainted at least with the apostles
Peter and Paul.
7 See the Bpistle of Clement itself, apres chaps. 1 and 3.
8 Upon the epistle, see above, Bk. III. chap. 16, note 1.
9 dveodoa Thy TigTLY avTaY Kal hy VewoTi amd THY anogTOAWY mapaéorw eiAjper, The last word being in the singular, the tradition must be that received by the Roman, not by the Corinthian church (as it is commonly understood), and hence it is necessary to supply some verb which shall govern mapadogw, for it is at least very fark to say that the Roman church, in its epistle to the Corinthians "' renewed'? the faith which z# had received.
The truth is, that both in Rufinus and in Irenzus an extra participle is found 8 Adv. Har. Il. 31. 2.
The sentence as it stands in Eus¢bius is incomplete.
Irenzus is refuting the pretended miracles of Simon and Carpocrates.
The passage runs as follows: ''So far are they [i.e. Simon and Carpocrates] from being able to raise the dead as the Lord raised them and as the apostles did by means of prayer, and as has been frequently done in the brotherhood on account of some necessity — the entire Church in that locality entreating with much fasting and prayer [so that] the spirit of the dead man has returned, and he has been bestowed in answer to the prayer of the saints —that they do not even believe this can possibly be done, [and hold] that the resurrection from the dead is simply an acquaintance with that truth which they proclaim."
(in the former exprimens, in the latter anzuntians), and Stroth has in consequence ventured to insert the word xatayyéAovea in his text.
I have likewise, for the sake of the sense, inserted the word proclaiming, not thereby intending to imply, however, the belief that xatayyéAovca stood in the original text of Eusebius.
This resurrection of the dead recorded by Irenzus is very difficult to explain, as he is a truth-loving man, and we can hardly conceive of his uttering a direct falsehood.
Even Augustine, '' the iron man of truth,"? records such miracles, and so the early centuries are full of accounts of them.
The Protestant method of drawing a line between the apostolic and post-apostolic ages in this matter of miracles is arbitrary, and based upon dogmatic, not historical grounds.
The truth is, that no one can fix the point of time at which miracles ceased; at the same time, it is easy to appreciate the difference between the apostolic age and the third, fourth, and following centuries in this regard.
That they did ceage at an early date in the history of the Church is clear enough. pon post-apostolic miracles, see Schaff, Ch. Hzst. II. p. 116 ff., J.
H. Newman's Two Essays on Biblical and Eccles. Miracies, and J. B. Mozley's Bampton lectures On Miracles.
10 It is interesting to notice hdw strictly Eusebius carries out his principle of taking historical matter wherever he can find it, but of omitting all doctrinal statements and discussions.
The few sentences which follow in Irenzus are of a doctrinal nature, and in the form of a brief polemic against Gnosticism.
11 bid.
12 Upon Evarestus, see above, Bk. III. chap. 34, note 3.
18 Upon Alexander, see Bk. IV. chap. 1, note 4.
14 Upon Xystus, see 1V. 4, note 3.
15 Upon Telesphorus, see IV. 5, note 13.
16 Upon Hyginus, see IV. 10, note 3.
17 Upon Pius, see IV. 11, note 14.
18 Upon Anicetus, see IV. 11, note 18.
19 Upon Soter, see IV, 19,note 2.
20 Upon Eleutherus, see ntrod. to this book, note 2.
21 §.a80xj, which is confirmed by the ancient Latin version of 4 See the previous note.
5 Adv. Har. ll. 32. 4.
G3 0 Pe
THE CHURCH HISTORY .OF EUSEBIUS.
Yee De Ee es the Hebrews in their own language,' while Peter and Paul were preaching and founding the church in Rome.*
After theirde-
parture Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also transmitted to us in writing those things which Peter had preached ;° and Luke, the attendant of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel which Paul had declared.® Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also reclined on his bosom, published his Gospel, while staying at Ephesus in Asia."
"Tf they will say that even the Lord did these things in mere appearance, we will refer them to the prophetic writings, and show from them that all things were beforehand spoken of him in this manner, and were strictly fulfilled ; and that he alone is the Son of God.
Wherefore his true disciples, receiving grace from him, perform such works in his Name for the benefit of other
men, as each has received the gift from him.
For some of them drive out demons effectually and truly, so that those who have been cleansed from evil spirits frequently believe and unite with the Church.
Others have a foreknowledge of future events, and visions, and prophetic revelations.
Still others heal the sick by the laying on of hands, and restore them to health.
And, as we have said, even dead persons have been raised, and remained with
us many years.
But why should we say more?
It is not possible to recount the number of gifts which the Church, throughout all the world, has received from God in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and exercises every day for the benefit of the heathen, never deceiving any nor doing it for money.
For as she has received freely from God, freely also does she minis-
He states these things in the third book
of his above-mentioned work.
In the fifth book he speaks as follows concerning the Apoc- . alypse of John, and the number of the name of Antichrist : ° "As these things are so, and this number is found in all the approved and ancient copies,' and those who saw John face to face confirm it, and reason teaches us that the number of the name of the beast, according to the mode of calculation among the Greeks, appears in its letters... 7"
And farther on he says concerning the
same : 7
"We are not bold enough to speak confidently of the name of Antichrist.
For if it were necessary that his name should be declared clearly at the present time, it would have been announced by him who saw the revelation.
For it was seen, not long ago, but almost in our generation, toward the end of the reign of Domitian." " tery"*
And in another place the same author writes :7
"As also we hear that many brethren in the Church possess prophetic gifts, and speak, through the Spirit, with all kinds of tongues, and bring to light the secret things of men for their good, and declare the mysteries of God."
He states these things concerning the
Apocalypse ® in the work referred to.
He also mentions the first Epistle of John," taking So much in regard to the fact that various gifts remained among those who were worthy even until that time.
3 See above, Bk. III. chap. 24, note 5.
Irenzeus, in this chapter traces the four Gospels back to the apostles themselves, but he is unable to say that Matthew translated his Gospel into Greek, which is of course bad for his theory, as the Matthew Gospel which the Church of his time had was in Greek, not in Hebrew.
He puts the Hebrew Gospel, however, upon a par with the three Greek ones, and thus, although he does not say it directly, endeavors to convey the impression that the apostolicity of the Hebrew Matthew is a guarantee for the Greek Matthew also.
Of Papias' statement,
CHAPTER VIII.
'* Each one translated the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew as he was able," he could of course make no use even if he was acquainted with it.
Whether his account was dependent upon Papias' or not we cannot tell.
4+ See above, Bk. II. chap. 25, note 17.
The Statements of Irenaeus in regard to the Dtvine Scriptures.
° See above, Bk. IT. chap. 15, note 4.
SINCE, in the beginning of this work, we promised to give, when needful, the words of the ancient presbyters and writers of the Church, in which they have declared those traditions which came down to them concerning the canonical books, and since Irenzeus was one of them, we will now give his words and, first,
See above, Bk. III. chap. 4, note rs.
See above, Bk. III. chap. 24, note 1.
Ireneus, Adv. Her. V. 30. 1. ao o o _ © Rey. xili. 18.
Already in Irenzeus' time there was a variation in the copies of the Apocalypse.
This is interesting as showing the existence of old copies of the Apocalypse even in his time, and also as showing how early works became corrupted in the course of transmission.
We learn from his words, too, that textual criticism had already begun.
10 The sentence as Eusebius quotes it here is incomplete; he repeats only so much of it as suits his purpose.
Irenzeus completes his sentence, after a few more dependent clauses, by saying, "I do not know how it is that some have erred, following the ordina mode of speech, and have vitiated the middle number in the name,"
&c.
This shows that even in Ireneus' time there was as much controversy about the interpretation of the Apocalypse as there has always been, and that at that day exegetes were as a rule in no better position than we are.
Irenzeus refers in this sentence to the fact that the Greek numerals were indicated by the letters of the alphabet: Alpha, " one,"' Beta, '' two." &c. what he says of the sacred Gospels : "
"Matthew published his Gospel among ® Cf. Matt. x. 8.
1 Adv. Har. V. 6.1.
_1 Eusebius is apparently thinking of the preface to his work contained in Bk. I. chap. 1, but there he makes no such promise as he refers to here.
He speaks only of his general purpose to mention those men who preached the divine word either orally or in writing.
In Bk. III. chap. 3, however, he distinctly promises to do what he here speaks of doing, and perhaps remembered only that he had made such a promise without recalling where he had made it.
11 i.e. concerning the Beast or Antichrist.
Ireneus, Adv. Her.
V. 30. 3; quoted also in Bk. III. chap. 18, above.
Fa ais abo a a. chap, 18, note 1. pon the Apocalypse, see Bk. III. chap. 24, note 20.
4 In Adv. Her. Ul. 16.5,8.
Irenzus also quotes from the 2 Adu, Har UWlrts
V. 8.]
IREN/ZUS ON THE SCRIPTURES.
but not as some say, who now venture to translate the Scripture, 'Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bring forth a son,' * as Theodotion of Ephesus and Aquila of Pontus," both of them Jewish proselytes, interpreted ; following whom, the Ebionites say" that he was begotten by Joseph." many proofs from it, and likewise the first Epistle of Peter'
And he not only knows, but also receives, The Shepherd," writing as follows : "
"Well did the Scripture speak, saying,"
'First of all believe that God is one, who has created and completed all things,' "' &c.
And he uses almost the precise words of the Wisdom of Solomon, saying:" "The
Shortly after he adds:
"For before the Romans had established their empire, while the Macedonians were still holding Asia, Ptolemy, the son of Lagus," being desirous of adorning the library which he had founded in Alexandria with the meritorious writings of all men, requested the people of Jerusalem to have their Scriptures translated into the Greek language.
But, as they were then subject to the Macedonians, they sent to Ptolemy seventy elders, who were the most skilled among them in the Scriptures and in both languages. Thus God accomplished his purpose."
But wishing to try them individ-
vision of God produces immortality, but immortality renders us near to God."
He mentions also the memoirs" of a certain apostolic presbyter," whose name he passes by in silence, and gives his expositions of the sacred Scriptures.
And he refers to Justin the Martyr," and to Ignatius," using testimo-
nies also from their writings.
Moreover, he promises to refute Marcion from his own writings, in a special work."
Concerning the translation of the inspired® Scriptures by the Seventy, hear the very words which he writes : 7
"God in truth became man, and the Lord himself saved us, giving the sign of the virgin ;
28 Isa. vii. 14.
The original Hebrew has mov, which means ce simply a " young woman," not distinctively a '' virgin."
The LXX, followed by Matt. i. 23, wrongly translated by tapQévos, es SE SS EE ee " virgin pele f. Toy's Quotations in the New Testament, p1 sqq., and the various commentaries on Matthew).
Theodotion and Aquila translated the Hebrew word by veavis, which is the correct rendering, in spite of what Ireneus says.
The complete dependence of the Fathers upon the LXX, and their consequent errors as to the meaning of the original, are well illustrated in this case (cf. also Justin's Dza/, chap. 71)without distinguishing it from the first, in second Epistle of John, Upon John's epistles, see Bk. III. chap.
III. 16. 8, and I. 16. 3.
24, notes 18 and 19.
15 In Adv. Her: IV. 9. 2from the first Epistle of Peter, with the formula In IV. 16. 5 20d V. 7.2 he quotes * Peter says."
He See above, Bk. is the first one to connect the epistle with Peter.
III. chap. 3, note 1.
29 This is the earliest direct reference to the translations of Aquila and Theodotion, though Hermas used the version of the latter, as pointed out by Hort (see above, Bk. III. chap. 3, note 23).
Upon the two versions, see Bk. VI. chap. 16, notes 3 and 5.
16 je, the Shepherd of Hermas; see above, Bk. III. chap. 3, note 23.
11 Adv, Her. iV. 20. 2.
18 7 ypady, the regular word used in quoting Scripture.
Many of the Fathers of the second and third centuries used this word in referring to Clement, Hermas, Barnabas, and other works of the kind
30 Upon the Ebionites and their doctrines, see Bk. III. chap. 27.
31 Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, or Ptolemy Soter (the Dreseroenl was king of Egypt from 323-285 (283) B.C.
(compare especially Clement of Alexandria's use of the word).
The following story in regard to the origin of the LXX is first told in a spurious letter (probably dating from the first century
B.C.) which professes to have been written by Aristeas, a high officer at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285[283]-247 B.c.).
This epistle puts the origin of the LXX in the reign of the latter monarch instead of in that of his father, Ptolemy Soter, and is followed in this by Philo, Josephus, Tertullian, and most of the other ancient writers (Justin Martyr calls the king simply Ptolemy, while Clement of Alex. says that some connect the event with the one monarch, others with the other).
The account given in the letter (which is printed by Gallandius, B7é/. Patz. Il. 771, as well as in many other editions) is repeated over and over again, with greater or less variations, by early Jewish and Christian writers (e.g. by Philo,
19 The Shepherd of Hermas, II. t.
20 Adv. Her. lV. 38. 3.
Irenzus in this passage quotes freely from the apocryphal Book of Wisdom, VI. 19, without mentioning the source of his quotation, and indeed without wn any way indicating the fact that he is quoting
21 Grouvnuovevuatwy.
Written memoirs are hardly referred to here, but rather oral comments, expositions, or accounts of the interpretations of the apostles and others of the first generation of Christians.
22 Adv. Har. IV. 27. 1, where Irenzus mentions a "certain presbyter who had heard it from those who had seen the apostles,"
&c. ho this presbyter was cannot be determined.
Polycarp, Papias, and others have been suggested, but we have no grounds upon which to base a decision, though we may perhaps safely conclude that so prominent a man as Polycarp would hardly have been referred to in such an indefinite way; and Papias seems ruled out by the fact that the presbyter is here not made a hearer of the apostles themselves, while in V. 334 Pape is expressly stated to have been a hearer of John, —undou tedly in Irenzeus' mind the evangelist
John (see above, Bk, III. chap, 39, note 4).
Other anonymous 'authorities under the titles, "' One superior to us," " One before us,"
&c., are quoted by Irenzus in Pref. § 2,1. 13. 3, HI. 17. 4, etc.
See Routh, Rel.
Sacra, I. 45-68.
23 In Adv. Her. IV. 6.2, where he peveens 7H Martyr and uotes from his work Against Marcion (see usebius, Bk. IV. chap. 18), and also in Adv. Her. V. 26. 2, where he mentions him again by name and quotes from some unknown work (but see above,
Vit. Mos. 2; by Josephus, Ant. XII. 2; by Justin Martyr, Apol.
I. 31; by Clement of Alexandria, Strom. I. 22; by Tertullian, 4Zo/.
18) and others; see the article dzsteas in Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman Biog.).
It gives the number of the elders as seventytwo, —six from each tribe, That this marvelous tale is a fiction is clear enough, but whether it is based upon a groundwork of fact is disputed (see Schiirer, Gesch. der Yuden im Zettalter_Fesu Christz, Il. p. 697 sqq.)It is at any rate certain that the Pentateuch (the original account applies only to the Pentateuch, but later it was extended to the entire Old Testament) was translated into Greek in Alexandria as early as the third century B.c.; whether under Ptolemy Philadelphus, and at his desire, we cannot tell.
The translation of the remainder of the Old Testament followed during the second century B.c., the books being translated at various times by unknown authors, but all or most of them probably in Egypt zbid. note 15).
; 24 Trenzeus nowhere mentions Ignatius by name, but in V. 28. 4 he quotes from his epistle to the Romans, chap. 4, under the formula,
(see Schiirer, zJzd.).
It was, of course, to the interest of the Christians to maintain the miraculous origin of the LXX, for otherwise they would have to yield to the attacks of the Jews, who often taunted them with having only a translation of the Scriptures.
Accepting the miraculous origin of the. LXX, the Christians, on the other hand, could accuse the Jews of falsifying their Hebrew copies wherever they differed fromthe LXX, making the latter the only authoritative standard (cf.
Justin Martyr's Dial. chap. 71, and many other passages in the work).
Upon the attitude of the Christians, and the earlier and later attitude of the Jews toward the LXX, see below, Bk. VI. chap. 16, note 8.
«<< A certain one of our people said, when he was condemned to the wild beasts."
It is interesting to note how diligently Eusebius had read the works of Irenzus, and extracted from them all that could contribute to his Héstory.
Upon Ignatius, see above, III. 36.
; %° Ady. Her. \. 27. 4, III. 12. 12.
This promise was apparently never fulfilled, as we hear nothing of the work from any of Trenzus' successors.
But in Bk. IV. chap. 25 Eusebius speaks of Trenzeus as one of those who had written against Marcion, whether jn this referring to his special work promised here, or only to his general work Adv. Her., we cannot tell.
82 moincavros TOD Beod Smep HBovAeto.
This is quite different from the text of Irenzeus, which reads factuvos hoc quod tpse voluzsset (implying that the original Greek was ToujgovTas TOUTO OTeEp
2% OecomvevoTwv, 27 Adv. Her. Xl. 21. 1.
THE CHURCH HISTORY OF EUSEBIUS.
[V. 8. ually, as he feared lest, by taking counsel together, they might conceal the truth of the Scriptures by their interpretation, he separated them from one another, and commanded all of CHAPTER X.
Pantenus the Philosopher. them to write the same translation.™ He
did this for all the books.
But when they came together in the presence of Ptolemy, and compared their several translations, God was glorified, and the Scriptures were recognized as truly divine.
For all of them had rendered the same things in the same words and with the same names from beginning to end, so that the heathen perceived that the Scriptures had been
ABOouT that time, Panteenus,!a man highly
distinguished for his learning, had charge of the school of the faithful in Alexandria.2
A school of sacred learning, which continues to our day, was established there in ancient times,*
1 Pantzenus is the first teacher of the Alexandrian school that is known to us, and even his life is involved in obscurity.
His chief significance for us lies in the fact that he was the teacher of Clement, with whom the Alexandrian school first steps out into the full light of history, and makes itself felt as a power in Christendom.
Another prominent pupil of Pantzenus was Alexander, bishop of erusalem translated by the inspiration®™ of God.
And this was nothing wonderful for God to do, who, in the captivity of the people under Nebuchadnezzar, when the Scriptures had been destroyed, and the Jews had returned to their qwn country after seventy years, afterwards, in the time of Artaxerxes, king of the Persians, inspired Ezra the priest, of the tribe of Levi, to relate all the words of the former prophets, and to restore to the people the legislation of Moses." ® (see below, Bk. VI. chap. 14).
Pantzenus was originally a Stoic philosopher, and must have discussed philosophy in his school in connection with theology, for Origen appeals to him as his example in this respect (see below, Bk. VI. chap. 19).
His abilities are testified to by Clement (in his Hyfotyposes ; see the next chapter,
§ 4), who speaks of him always in terms of the deepest respect and affection.
Of his birth and death we know nothing. lement, Strorm. I. 1, calls him a 'Sicilian bee," which may, perhaps, have reference to his birthplace.
The statement of Philip of Side, that he was an Athenian, is worthless.
We do not know when he began his work in Alexandria, nor when he finished it.
But from Bk. VI. chap. 6 we learn that Clement had succeeded Pantzenus, and was in charge of the school in the time of Septimius
Severus.
This probably means not merely that Pantenus had left Egypt, but that he was already dead; and if that be the case, the statement of Jerome (de vir. zi. 36), that Pantenus was in charge of the school during the reigns of Septimius Severus and Caracalla, is erroneous (Jerome himself expressly says, in zb7d. chap. 38, that Clement succeeded Panteenus upon the death of the latter).
Jerome's statement, however, that Pantznus was sent to India by Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, is not necessarily in conflict with the indefinite account of Eusebius, who gives no dates,
What authority Jerome has for his account we do not know.
If his statement be correct, the journey must have taken place after 190; and thus after, or in the midst of, his Alexandrian activity.
Eusebius apparently accepted the latter opinion, though his statement at the end of this chapter is dark, and evidently implies that he was very uncertain in regard to the matter. His whole account rests simply on hearsay, and therefore too much weight must not be laid upon its accuracy.
After Clement comes upon the scene (which was at least some years before the outbreak of the persecution of Severus,
200 A.D.— when he left the city) we hear nothing more of Pantenus.
Some have put his journey to India in this later period; but this is contrary to the report of Eusebius, and there is no authority for the opinion.
Photius (Cod. 118) records a tradition that Pantenus had himself heard some of the apostles; but this is impossible, and is asserted by no oneelse.
According to Jerome, numerous commentaries of Panteenus were extant in Fis time.
Eusebius, at the close of this chapter, eet of his expounding the Scriptures " both orally and in writing," but he does not enumerate his works, and apparently had never seen them.
No traces of them are now extant, unless some brief reminiscences of his teaching, which we have, are supposed to be drawn from his works, and not merely from his lectures or conversations (see Routh, Re/. Sac. I. p. 375-383).
2 The origin of this school of the aithful, or '' catechetical school," in Alexandria is involved in obscurity.
Philip of Side names Athenagoras as the founder of the school, but his account is full of inconsistencies and contradictions, and deserves no credence,
The school first comes out into the light of history at this time with Panteenus at its head, and pays a prominent part in Church histo under Clement, Origen, eraclas, Dionysius, Did mus, &c., until the end of the fourth century, when it sinks out of sight in the midst of the dissensions of _the Alexandrian church, and its end like its beginning is involved in obscurity, It probably owed its origin to no particular individual, but arose naturally as an outgrowth from the practice which flourished in the early Church or instructing catechumens in the elements of Christianity before admitting them to baptism.
In such a philosophical metropolis as Alexandria, 2 school, though intended only for catechumens, would very naturally soon assume a learned character, and it had already in the time of Pantzenus at least become a regular theological school for the preparation especially of teachers and preachers.
It exercised a great influence upon theological science, and numbered among its pupils many celebrated theologians and bishops.
See the article by Redepenning in Herzog, 2d ed. I. 290-292, and Schaff's Ch. Hist. Il.
777-781, where the literature of the subject is .given.
3 Jerome (de v?r. Zi). c. 36) states that there had always been ecclesiastical teachers in Alexandria from the time of Mark.
He is evidently, however, giving no independent tradition, but merely draws his conclusion from the words of Eusebius, who simply says
Such are the words of Irenzeus.
CHAPTER. IX.
The Bishops under Commodus.
AFTER Antoninus! had been emperor for nineteen years, Commodus received the government."
In his first year Julian® became bishop of the Alexandrian churches, after Agrippinus' had held the office for twelve years.
———— nBovAero), "to carry out what he [viz. Ptolemy] had desired."
Heinichen modifies the text of Eusebius somewhat, substituting moijoovtas 74 for rorjaavtos Tov, but there can be little doubt that Eusebius originally wrote the sentence in the form given at the beginning of this note.
That Irenzus wrote it in that form, however, is uncertain, though, in view of the fact that Clement of Alex.
Strom. 1. 22) confirms the reading of Eusebius (reading @cod yap fs BovAnua), I am inclined to think that the text of Eusebius represents the original more closely than the text of the Latin translation of Irenzus does.
Most of the editors, however, both of Eusebius and of Irenzus, take the other view (cf. Harvey's note in his edition of Irenzus, Vol. IT. p. 113).
33 thy abthy épunveray ypddery, as the majority of the MSS., followed by Burton and most other editors, read. troth, Zimmermann, and Heinichen, on the authority of Rufinus and of the Latin version of Irenzeus, read, Thy avrhy epunvever ypapnv. kat' émimvovay.
85 This tradition, which was commonly accepted until the time of the Reformation, dates from the first Christian century, for it is found in the fourth book of Ezra (xiv. 44).
It is there said that Ezra was inspired to dictate to five men, durin forty days, ninetyfour books, of which twenty-four (the canonical books) were to be published.
The tradition is repeated quite frequently by the Fathers, but that Ezra formed the Old Testament canon is impossible, for some of the books were not written until after his day.
The truth is, it was a gradual growth and was not completed until the second century B.c.
See above, Bk, III. chap. ro, note 1, 1 i.e. Marcus Aurelius.
See below, p. 390, note.
2 March 17, 180 A.D.
A $ Of this Julian we know nothing except what is told us by Eusebius here and in chap. 22, below, where he is said to have held office ten years.
In the Chron. he is also said to have been bishop for ten years, but his accession is put in the nineteenth year of Marcus Aurelius (by Jerome), or in the second year of Commodus from ancient times."
The date of the origin of the school is in fact entirely unknown, though there is nothing improbable in the statement of Jerome that ecclesiastical teachers were always there.
It must, however, have bee develoned erate he he a ane years before a school could be
(by the Armenian version), * Upon Agrippinus, see above, Bk. IV, chap. 19, note 5,
V. 11.)
PANTAENUS AND CLEMENT.
and as we have been informed, was managed by men of great ability and zeal for divine things.
Among these it is reported® that Panteenus was at that time especially conspicuous, as he had been educated in the philo-
sophical system of those called Stoics. They say that he displayed such zeal for the divine Word, that he was appointed as a herald of the Gospel of Christ to the nations in the East, and was sent as far as India.
For indeed' there were still many evangelists of the Word who sought earnestly to use their inspired zeal, after the examples of the apostles, for the in-
CHAPTER XI.
Clement of Alexandria.
Ar this time Clement,' being trained with
him ?in the divine Scriptures at Alexandria, became well known.
He had the same name as the one who anciently was at the head of the Roman church, and who was a disciple of the apostles.'
In his Hypotyposes* he
speaks of Pantzenus by name as his teacher.
It seems to me that he alludes to the same person also in the first book of his Stromata, when, referring to the more conspicuous of the successors of the apostles whom he had met,' he says : crease and building up of the Divine Word.
Panteenus was one of these, and is said to have gone to India.
It is reported that among persons there who knew of Christ, he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had anticipated his own arrival.
For Bartholomew,® one of the apostles, had preached to them, and left with them the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language,' which they had
"This work' is not a writing artfully
constructed for display ; but my notes are stored up for old age, as a remedy against forgetfulness ; an image without art, and a rough sketch of those powerful and animated words which it was my privilege to hear, as well as Of
in of blessed and truly remarkable men. these the one — the Ionian * — was preserved till that time.
& After many good deeds, Pantzenus finally became the head of the school at Alexandria," and expounded the treasures of divine
1 Of the place and time of Titus Flavius Clement's birth we have no certain knowledge, though it is probable that he was an Athenian
Po at least, if not by birth, and he must have been born about the middle of the second century.
He received a very extensive education, and became a Christian in adult years, after he had tried various systems of philosophy, much as Justin Martyr had.
He had a great thirst for knowledge, and names six different teachers under whom he studied Christianity (see below, § 4).
Finally he became a pupil of Pantzenus in Alexandria, whom he afterward succeeded as the head of the catechetical school there.
It is at this time (about 190 A.D.) that he comes out clearly into the light of history, and to this period (190-202) belongs his greatest literary activity.
He was at the head of the school probably until 202, when the persecution of Severus having broken out, he left Alexandria, and we have no notice that he ever returned.
That he did not leave Alexandria dishonorably, through fear, may be gathered from his presence with Alexander during his imprisonment, and from the letters of the latter (see below, Bk. VI. chaps. rz and 14, and cf.
Bk. VI. chap. 6, notes).
This is the last notice that we have of him (A.D. 212); and of the place and time of his death we know nothing, though he cannot have lived many years after this.
He was never a bishop, but was a presbyter of che Alexandrian church, and was in ancient times commemorated as a saint, but his name was dropped from the roll by Clement VIII. on account of susdoctrine both orally and in writing." en 4 raperdAnpapev.
5 Adyos Exe. t 6 Jerome (de vir. z1l. 36) says that he was sent to India by the bishop Demetrius at the request of the Indians themselves,
—a statement more exact than that of Eusebius, whether resting upon tradition merely, or upon more accurate information, or whether it is simply a combination of Jerome's, we do not know.
It is at any rate not at all improbable (see above, note r). A little farther on Eusebius indicates that Panteenus preached in the same country in which the apostle Bartholomew had done missionary work.
But according to Lipsius (Dzct. of Christ. Biog. 1. p. 22) Bartholomew's traditional field of labor was the region of the Bosphorus.
He follows Gutschmid therefore in claiming that the Indians here are confounded with the Sindians, over whom the Bosphorian kings of the house of Polemo ruled.
Sad (Ep. ad Magnum; Migne, Ep. 70) evidently regards the ndia where Pantznus preached as India proper (Pantenus Stoica secte philosophus, ob pracipue eruditionts gloriam, a Demetrio A lexandria episcopo missus est in Indiam, ut Christum apud Brachmanas, et illius gentis ected heterodoxy.
He lived in an age of transition, and his great importance lies in the fact that he completed the bond between Hellenism and Christianity, and as a follower of the apologists established Christianity as a philosophy, and yet not as they had done in an apologetic sense. e was the teacher of Origen, and the real. father of Greek theology.
He published no system, as did Origen; Atlosophos predicaret).
Whether the original tradition was that Stans went to India, and his connection with Bartholomew
(who was wrongly supposed to have preached to the Indians) was a later combination, or whether, on the other hand, the tradition that he preached in Bartholomew's field of labcr was the original and the mission to India a later combination, we cannot tell.
It is probable that Eusebius meant India proper, as Jerome certainly did, but both of them may have been mistaken. ees 1 Foav yap, }oav cicért.
Eusebius seems to think it a remarkable fact that there should s¢z/7 have been preaching evangelists.
Evidently they were no longer common in his day.
It is interesting to notice that he calls them "evangelists."
In earlier times they were called '' apostles" (e.g. in the Didache), but the latter had long before Eusebius' time become.a narrower, technical term.
8 See note 6.
9 If the truth of this account be accepted, Pantzenus is a witness to the existence of a Hebrew Matthew.
See above, Bk. III. chap.
24, note 5.
It has been assumed by some that this Gospel was the Gospel according to the Hebrews (see Bk. III. chap. 25, note 24).
This is possible; but even if Pantanus really did find a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew as Eusebius says (and which, according to Jerome, de vir. til. 36, he brought back to Alexandria with him), we have no grounds upon which to base a conclusion as to its nature, or its relation to our Greek Matthew.
10 Eusebius apparently puts the journey of Pantenus in the middle of his Alexandrian activity, and makes him return again, and teach there until his death.
Jerome also agrees in putting the journey in the middle and not at the beginning or close of his Alexandrian activity.
It must be confessed, however, that Eusebius' language is very vague, and of such a nature as — to imply that he really had no idea when the mission took place. his works were rather desultory and fragmentary, but full of wide and varied learning, and exhibit a truly broad and catholic spirit.
Upon his works, see Bk. VI. chap. 13.
Upon Clement, see especially Westcott's article in Smith and Wace, I. 559-567, and Schaff,.
II. 781-785, where the literature is given with considerable fullness.
For an able and popular presentation of his theology, see Allen's.
Continutty of Christian Thought, p. 38-70.
2 guvacKovmevos.
8 Upon Clement of Rome and his relation to the apostles, see Bk. III. chap. 4, note 19.
4 On Clement's Hyfotyposes, see Bk. VI. chap. 13, note 3. The passage in which he mentions Pantznus by name has not been preserved,
Eusebius repeats the same statement in Bk, VI. chap. 13, ie - 5 rods éudhavearépous hs KateiAnhey amédaroAtKhs Siadoxys émonpavéuevos.
Rufinus reads afostolice predicationts instead of successtonts.
And so Christophorsonus and Valesius adopt é:5axis instead of d.aSox%s, and translate doctrine.
But dcadox7s is too well supported by MS. authority to be rejected; and thoug the use of the abstract " succession," instead of the concrete " successors," seems harsh, it is employed elsewhere in the same sense by Eusebius (see Bk. I. chap. 1, § 1).
; 6 Strom. 1.1.
7 i.e. his Stromata.
8 This is hardly a proper name, although many have so considered it, for Clement gives no other proper name in this connection, and it is much more natural to translate "the Jonian,'?
11 See above, note I.
THE CHURCH) HISTORY OF EUSEBRBIUS.
[Vi wre brated by many to this day.
He was the fifteenth in succession from the siege of the Jews under Adrian.
We have shown that from that time first the church in Jerusalem was composed of Gentiles, after those of the circumcision, and that Marcus was the first Gentile bishop that presided over them.?
After him the
succession in the episcopate was: first Cassianus ; after him Publius ; then Maximus ; * following them Julian; then Gaius ;* after him
Symmachus and another Gaius, and again another Julian ; after these Capito® and Valens and Dolichianus ; and after all of them Narcissus, the thirtieth in regular succession from the apostles.
Greece, the other in Magna Grecia ;* the one of them was from Ceele-Syria," the other from Egypt.
There were others in the East, one of them an Assyrian," the other a Hebrew in Palestine.'
But when I met with the last," "ip ability truly he was first, — having hunted him out in his concealment in Egypt, I found
rest.
These men, preserving the true tradition of the blessed doctrine, directly from the holy apostles, Peter and James and John and Paul, the son receiving it from the father (but few were like the fathers), have come by God's will even to us to deposit those ancestral and apostolic seeds." chap. 23, § 2); from Bk. VI. chap. 8, that he was alive at the time of the persecution of Severus (202 sq.); and from the fragment of one of Alexander's epistles given in Bk. VI. chap. rr, that he was still alive in his rx6th year, sometime after 212 a.p. (see Bk. VI. chap. rr, note x), Epiphanius (A¥er. LXVI. 20) reports that he lived until the reign of Alexander Severus (222 A.p.), and this in itself would not be impossible; for the epistle of Alexander referred to might have been written as late as 222.
But Epiphanius is a writer of no authority; and the fact is, that in connection with Origen's visit in Palestine, in 216 (see Bk. VI. chap. 19), Alexander is mentioned as bishop of Jerusalem; and Narcissus is not referred to, We must, therefore, conclude that Narcissus was dead before 216.
We learn from Bk. VI. chap. 9 that Narcissus had the reputation of being a great miracle-worker, and he was a man of such — piety and sanctity as to excite the hatred of a number of evil-doers, who conspired against him to blacken his character.
In consequence of this he left Jerusalem, and disappeared entirely from the haunts of men, so that it became necessary to appoint another bishop in his place.
Afterward, his slanderers having suffered the curses imprecated upon themselves in their oaths against him, Narcissus returned, and was again made bishop, and was given an assistant,
Alexander (see Bk. VI. chaps. ro and rr). A late tradition makes Narcissus a martyr (see Nicephorus, H. £. IV. 19), but there is no authority for the report.
CHAPTER XII.
The Bishops in Jerusalem.
* Ar this time Narcissus' was the bishop of the church at Jerusalem, and he is celeVarious conjectures have been made as to who these teachers were, but none are more than mere guesses.
Philip of Side tells us that Athenagoras was a teacher of Clement, but, as we have seen, no confidence can be placed in his statement.
It has been conjectured also that Melito may be the person referred to as 'the Ionian," for Clement mentions his works, and wrote a book on the paschal question in reply to Melito's work on the same subject (see above, Bk.
IV. chap. 26, note 23).
This too, however, is mere conjecture.
® The lower part of the peninsula of Italy was called Magna Grecia, because it contained so many Greek colonies.
10 Ceele-Syria was the valley lying between the eastern and western ranges of Lebanon.
? Upon the so-called bishops of Jerusalem down to the destruction of the city under Hadrian, see Bk. IV. chap. 5.
Upon the destruction of Jerusalem under Hadrian, and the founding of the Gentile Church in lia Capitolina, and upon Marcus the first Gentile bishop, see Bk. IV. chap. 6.
41 This has been conjectured to be Tatian.
But in the first place, Clement, in Strom, IIL. 12, calls Tatian a Syrian instead of an Assyrian (the terms are indeed often used interchangeably, but we should nevertheless hardly expect Clement to call his own teacher in one place a Syrian, in another an Assyrian).
And again, in II.
12, he speaks very harshly of Tatian, and could hardly have referred to him in this place in such terms of respect and affection.
The list given here by Eusebius urports to contain fifteen names, Marcus being the sixteenth, and Narcissus being the thirtieth; but only thirteen names are given.
In the Chron, however, and in Epiphanius (He, LXVI. 20) the list is complete, a second Maximus and a Valentinus being inserted, as 26th and 27th, between Capito and Valens.
The omission here is undoubtedly due simply to the mistake of some scribe.
The Chron. puts the accession of Cassianus into the 23d year of Antoninus Pius (160 A.D.), and the accession of the second Nien into the sixth year of Commodus
(185 A.D.), but it is said in the Chron. itself that the dates of the various bishops are not known, and hence no reliance can be placed upon these figures.
Epiphanius puts the accession of the first Gaius into the tenth year of Antoninus Bias; which is thirteen years earlier than the date of the Cron. for the fourth bishop preceding.
He also puts the death of the second Gaius in the eighth year of Marcus Aurelius (168 A.p.), and the death of the second M aximus in the sixteenth year of the same reign, thus showing a variation from the Chron. of more than nine years.
The episcopate of Dolichianus is brought down by him to the reign of Commodus (180 a.p.).
As shown in note 1, however, the date given by him for Narcissus is caste wrong, and there is no reason for bestowing any greater cre12 Various conjectures have been made as to the identity of this teacher, — for instance, Theophilus of Czesarea (who, however, was never called a Hebrew, according to Valesius), and Theodotus (so Valesius).
1S Pantenus.
There can be no doubt as to his identity, for Clement says that he remained with him and sought no further.
Eusebius omits a sentence here in which Clement calls Pantenus the "Sicilian bee," from which it is generally concluded that he was a native of Sicily (see the previous chapter, note 1).
4 This entire passage is very important, as showing not only the extensiveness of Clement's own acquaintance with Consdans, but also the close intercourse of Christians in eneral, both East and West.
Clement's statement in regard to the directness with which he received apostolic tradition is not definite, and he b no means asserts that his teachers were hearers of the apostles (which in itself would not be impossible, but Clement would certainly have spoken more clearly had it been a fact), nor indeed that they were hearers of disciples of the apostles.
But among so many teachers, so widely scattered, he could hardly have failed to meet with some who had at least known those who had known the apostles.
In any case he considers his teachers very near the apostles as regards the ence upon his other dates.
Syncellus assigns five years to Cassianus, five to Publius, four to Maximus, two to Julian, three to the first Gaius, two to Symmachus, three to the second Gaius, four to the second Julian, two to an Elias who is not named by our other authorities, four to Capito, four to the second Maximus, five to Antoninus, three to Valens, four to Narcissus the first time, and ten the second time.
His list, however, is considerably confused, — Dolichianus being thrown after Narcissus with an 'episcopate of twelve years,—and at any rate no reliance can be placed upon the figures given.
We must conclude that we have no means of ascertaining the dates of these various aay until we reach Narcissus.
We know nothing about any of them (Narcissus excepted) beyond the fact that they were bishops. accuracy of their traditions.
The passage is also interesting, as showing the uniformity of doctrine in different parts of Christendom, according to Clement's view, though this does not prove much, as Clement himself was so liberal and so much of an eclectic.
It is also interesting, as showing how much weight Clement laid upon tradition, how completely he rested upon it for the truth, although at the same time he was so free and broad in his speculation.
1 The date of Narcissus' accession to the see of Jerusalem is not known 'tous.
The Chron. affords us no assistance: for although it connects him among other bishops with the first (Armen.) or third
8 Called Maximinus by the Armenian Chron., but all our other authorities call him Maximus.
(Jerome) year of Severus, it does not pretend to give the date of accession, and in one place says expressly that the dates of the Jerusalem bishops are not known (xox Potutmus discernere tempora singulorum).
But from chap. 22 we learn that he was already bishop in the tenth year of Commodus (189 A.D.) ; from chap, 23, that he was one of those that presided at a Palestinian council, called in the time of Bishop Victor, of Rome, to discuss the paschal question (see
The name is given Taios in this chapter, and b Syncellus; but Jerome and the Armenian give Gaianus, and Beinbenias Daiavos.
All the authorities agree upon the name of the next Gaius (who is, however, omitted by Rufinus).
5 Eusebius has Kamrwyr, so also Epiphanius, with whom Jerome agrees, writing Capzto.
The Armenian, however, has Apion, and Syncellus says 'Amwr, ot 58 Kamitwp.
RHODO'S ACCOUNT OF APELLES.
V. 13.] himself on his manner of life*® and his age, acknowledges one principle,? but says that the prophecies" are from an opposing spirit, being led to this view by the responses of a maiden by name Philumene," who was possessed by a
CHAPTER' XIII.
Rhode and his Account of the Dissension of Marcton.
AT this time Rhodo,' a native of Asia, who had been instructed, as he himself states, by Tatian, with whom we have already become acquainted,' having written several books, published among the rest one against the heresy of he must have been born early in the second century.
We know nothing definite either as to his birth or death.
The picture which we have of him in this chapter is a very pleasing one.
He was a man evidently of deep religious spirit and moral life, who laid weight upon "'trust in the crucified Christ" (see § 5, below), and upon holiness in life in distinction from doctrinal beliefs; a man who was thus thoroughly Marcionitic in his principles, although he differed so widely with Marcion in some of his doctrinal positions that he was said to have founded a new sect (so Origen, Hom. zu Gen.
Il. 2).
The slightest difference, however, between his teaching and Marcion's would have been sufficient to make him the founder of a separate Gnostic sect in the eyes of the Fathers, and therefore this statement must be taken with allowance (see note 4, above).
The account which Hippolytus (P27. X. 16) gives of the doctrinal positions of Apelles is somewhat different from that of Rhodo, but ambiguous and less exact.
The scandal in regard to him, reported b Tertullian in his De Prescriptione, 30, is quite in accord wicks
Tertullian's usual conduct towards heretics, and may be set aside as not having the slightest foundation in fact, and as absolutely contradicting what we know of Apelles from this report of his contemporary, Rhodo.
His moral character was certainly above reproach, and the same may be said of his master, Marcion.
Upon Apelles, see especially Harnack's De Apellis Gnosis Monarchza, Lips. 1874.
Marcion.?
He says that this heresy was divided in his time into various opinions ;* and while describing those who occasioned the division, he refutes accurately the falsehoods devised
byeachof them.
But hear what he writes :° "Therefore also they disagree among themselves, maintaining an inconsistent opinion.
For Apelles,' one of the herd, priding 1 We know nothing of Rhodo except what is contained in this chapter.
Jerome gives a very brief account of him in his de wzr. 710.
37, but it rests solely upon this chapter, with the single addition of the statement that Rhodo wrote a work Agazust the Phrygians.
It is plain enough, however, that he had for his account no independent source, and that he in this statement simply attributed to Rhodo the work quoted by Eusebius as an anonymous work in chap. 16.
Jerome permits himself such unwarranted combinations very frequently, and we need not be at all surprised at it.
With him a guess is often as good as knowledge, and in this case he doubtless considered his guess a very shrewd one.
There is no warrant for supposing that he himself saw the work mentioned by Eusebius, and thus learned its authorship.
What Eusebius did not learn from it he certainly could not, and his whole account betrays the most slavish and complete dependence upon Eusebius as his only source, In chap. 39 Jerome mentions Rhodo again as referring, in a book which he wrote against Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, to Miltiades, who also wrote against the same heretics.
This report is plainly enough taken directly from Eusebius, chap. 17, where Eusebius quotes from the same anonymous work.
Jerome's utterly baseless combination is very interesting, and significant of his general method.
8 The participle (cezvvvdpuevos) carries with it the implication that Apelles' character was affected or assumed.
The implication, however, does not lessen the value of Rhodo's testimony to his character.
He could not deny its purity, though he insinuated that it was not sincere.
® This means that Apelles accepted only one God, and made the creator but an angel who was completely under the power of the Supreme God.
Marcion, on the contrary, held, as said below, two principles, teaching that the world-creator was himself a God, eternal, uncreated, and independent of the good God of the Christians.
It is true that Marcion represented the world-creator as limited in power and knowledge, and taught that the Christian God would finally be supreme, and the world-creator become subject to him; but this, while it involves Marcion in self-contradiction as soon as the matter is looked at theoretically, yet does not relieve him from the charge of actual dualism.
His followers were more consistent, and either accepted one principle, subordinating the worldcreator completely to the good God, as did Apelles, or else carried out Marcion's dualism to its logical result and asserted the continued. independence of the Old Testament God and the world-creator, who was thus very early identified with Satan and made the enemy of the Christian God.
(Marcion's world-creator was not the bad God, but the righteous in distinction from the good God.) _ Still others. held three principles: the good God of the Christians, the righteous
God or world-creator, and the bad God, Satan.
The varying doctrines of these schools explain the discrepant and often contradictory reports of the Fathers in regard to the doctrines of Marcion.
Apelles' doctrine was a decided advance upon that of Marcion, as he rejected the dualism of the latter, which was the destructive element in his system, and thus approached the Church, whose foundation must be oze God who rules the world for good.
His position is very significant, as remarked by Harnack, because it shows that one could hold Marcion's fundamental principle without becoming a dualist.
Rhodo's works are no longer extant, and the only fragments we have are those preserved by Eusebius in this chapter.
2 See Bk. IV. chap. 29.
3 Upon Marcion and Marcionism, see Bk. IV. chap. 11, note 22.
4 It is noticeable that Rhodo says yrwpas, opinions, not parties.
Although the different Marcionites held various theoretical beliefs, which gave rise to different schools, yet they did not split up into sects, but remained one church, and retained the one general name of Marcionites, and it isi by this general name alone that they are always referred to' by the Voces, The fact that they could hold such variant beliefs (e.g. one, two, or three principles; see below, note g) without splitting up into sects, shows that doctrines were but a side issue with them, and that the religious spirit was the matter upon which they laid the chief emphasis.
This shows the fundamental difference between Marcion and the Gnostics.
10 i.e. the Old Testament prophecies.
Apelles in his SyJlogzsms (see below, note 28) exhibited the supposed contradictions of the Old Testament in syllogistic form, tracing them to two adverse angels, of whom the one spoke falsely, contradicting the truth spoken by the other.
Marcion, on the other hand (in his A xtztheses), referred all things to the same God, the world-creator, and from the contradictions of the book endeavored to show his vacillating and inconsistent character.
He, however, accepted the Old Testament as in the main a trustworthy book, but referred the prophecies to the Jewish Messiah in distinction from the Christ of the New Testament.
But Apelles, looking upon two adverse angels as the authors of the book, regarded it as in great part false.
Marcion and Apelles were one, however, in looking upon it as an antiChristian book.
5 These fragments of Rhodo are collected and discussed by Routh in his Rel. Sacre, I. 437-446.
6 The Fathers entirely misunderstood Marcion, and mistook the significance of his movement.
They regarded it, like Gnosticism in general, solely as a speculative system, and entirely overlooked its practical aim.
The speculative and theological was not the chief thing with Marcion, but it is the only thing which receives any attention from his opponents.
His positions, all of which were held only with a practical interest, were not treated by him in a speculative manner, nor were they handled logically and systematically.
As a consequence, many contradictions occur in them.
These contradictions were felt by ie followers, who laid more and more emphasis upon the speculative over against the practical; and hence, as Rhodo reports, they fell into disagreement, and, in their effort to remove the inconsistencies, formed various schools, differing among themselves according to the element upon which the greatest weight was laid.
There is thus some justification for the conduct of the Fathers, who naturally carried back and attributed to Marcion the principles of his followers.
But it is our duty to distinguish the man from his followcvs, and to recognize his greatness in spite of their littleness.
Not all of them, however, fell completely away from his practical religious spirit.
Apelles, as we shall see below, was in many respects a worthy follower of his master. r 7 Apelles was the greatest and most famous of Marcion's disciples.
Tertullian wrote a special work against him, which is unfortunately lost, but from his own quotations, and from those of Pseudo-Tertullian and Hippolytus, it can be in part restored (cf. Harnack's De Apedlis Gnosts Monarchia, p. 11 sqq.)-. As he was an old man (see § 5, below) when Rhodo conversed with him,
11 This virgin, Philumene, is connected with Apelles in all the reports which we have of him (e.g. in Hippolytus, Tertullian, Jerome, &c.), and is reported to have been looked upon by Apelles as a prophetess who received revelations from an angel, and who worked miracles.
Tertullian, De Prescriptione, 6, evidently accepts these miracles as facts, but attributes them to the agency of a demon.
They all unite in considering her influence the cause of Apelles' heretical opinions.
Tertullian (zé7d. 30, &c.) calls her a prostitute, but the silence of Rhodo and Hippolytus is sufficient refutation of such a charge, and it may be rejected as a baseless slander, like-the report of Apelles' immorality mentioned in note 7.
There is nothing strange in the fact that Apelles should follow the prophecies of a virgin, and the Fathers who mention it evideritly do not consider it as anything peculiar or reprehensible in itself.
It was very common in the early Church to appeal to the relatives of virgins and widows, Cf. e.g. the virgin daughters of Philip who
THE CHURCH HISTORY OF EUSEBIUS.
Evers:
WL. ke Pe eee demon. But others, among whom are Potitus and Basilicus," hold to two principles," as does the mariner Marcion himself.
These following the wolf" of Pontus, and, like him, unable to fathom the division of things, became reckless, and without giving any proof asserted two principles.
Others, again, drifting into a worse error, consider that there are not only two, but three natures.'
Of these, Syneros" is the leader and chief, as those who defend his teaching # say."" The same author writes that he engaged in conversation with Apelles.
He speaks as follows : have said before, his opinion concerning God was the most obscure of all.
For he spoke of one principle, as also our doctrine does."
Then, after stating fully his own opinion,
he adds :
" When I said to him, Tell me how you know this or how can you assert that there is one principle, he replied that the prophecies refuted themselves, because they have said nothing true ;" for they are inconsistent, and false, and self-contradictory.
But how there is one principle he said that he did not know, but that he was thus persuaded.
AsI then adjured him to
speak the truth, he swore that he did so when he said that he did not know how there is one unbegotten God, but that he believed it.
Thereupon I laughed and reproved him because, though calling himself a teacher, he knew not how to confirm what he taught." *
"For the old man Apelles, when conversing with us,!® was refuted in many things which he spoke falsely ; whence also he said that it was not at all necessary to examine one's doctrine," but that each one should continue to hold what he believed.
For he asserted that those who trusted in the Crucified would be saved, if only In the same work, addressing Callistio,*the
same writer acknowledges that he had been instructed at Rome by Tatian."
And he says that a book of Problems * had been prepared by Tatian, in which he promised to explain the obthey were found doing good works."
But as we prophesied (Acts xxi. 9; Eusebius, III. 31), also the Eccles. Canons, chap. 21, where it is directed that three widows shall be appointed, of whom two shall give themselves to prayer, waiting for revelations in regard to any question which may arise in the Church, and the third shall devote herself to nursing the sick.
Tertullian also appeals for proof of the materiality of the soul to a vision enjoyed by a Christian sister (de Azzma, 9).
So Montanus had his prophetesses Priscilla and Maximilla (see the next chapter). sible that Apelles may have intended to express himself thus, it is more probable, when we remember the emphasis which Marcion laid upon Paul's doctrine of salvation by the grace of God alone, that he meant to do no more than emphasize good works as a natural result of true faith, as we do to-day.
The apparent co-ordination of the two may perhaps lie simply in Rhodo's reproduction of Apelles' words.
He, at least, did not comprehend Paul's grand doctrine of Christian liberty, nor did any of his orthodox contemporaries.
The difference between the common conception of Christ's relation to the law, and the conception of Paul as grasped by Marcion and perhaps by Apelles, is well illustrated by a passage in Tertullian, in which he expresses astonishment that the Marcionites do not sin freely, so long as they do not expect to be punished, and exclaims (to his own dishonor), '' I would sin without scruple, if I believed as you do."'
12 Of these two men we know only what is told us here.
They are not mentioned elsewhere.
13 See note 9.
14 6 vavtns.
This word is omitted by many MSS., but is found in the best ones and in Rufinus, and is accepted by most of the editors of Eusebius.
Tertullian calls Marcion a shipsanates (Adv.
Marc. Ill. 6, and IV. 9, &c.) and a pilot (zdzd. I. 18), and makes many plays upon his profession (e.g. zbzd. V. 1), and there is no reason to take the word in a figurative sense e has been done) and suppose that he is called a mariner simply because of his nationality.
We know that he traveled extensively, and that he was a rich man (for he gave 200,000 'sesterces at one time to the church of 22 Rhodo had probably brought forward against Apelles proof from prophecy which led to the discussion of the Old Testament prophecies in general.
Although Apelles had rejected Marcion's dualism, and accepted the ''one principle," he still rejected the Old
Testament.
This is quite peculiar, and yet perfectly comprehensible; for while Marcion was indeed the only one of that age that understood Paul, yet as Harnack well says, even he misunderstood him; and neither himself nor his followers were able to rise to Paul's noble conception of the Old Testament law as a '' schoolmaster to bring us to Christ," and thus a part of the good God's general plan of salvation.
It took, perhaps, a nee i baed as Paul was, to reach that high conception of the law in those days.
To Marcion and his followers the law seemed to stand in irreconcilable conflict with the Gospel, — Jewish law on the one side, Gospel liberty on the other, — they could not reconcile them; they must, therefore, reject the former as from another being, and not from the God of the Gospel.
There was in that age no historical interpretation of the Old Testament.
It must either be interpreted allegorically, and made a completely Christian book, or else it must rejected as opposed to Christianity.
Marcion and his followers, in their conception of law and Gospel as necessarily opposed, could follow only the latter course.
Marcion, in his rejection of the Old Testament, proceeded simply upon dogmatic presumptions.
Apelles, although his rejection of it undoubtedly originated in the same presumptions, yet subjected it to a criticism which satisfied him of the correctness of his
Rome, which was a large sum for those days; see Tertullian, de Prescript. 30). There is, therefore, no reason to doubt that he was a ''ship-master," as Tertullian calls him.
16 tt was the custom of the Fathers to call the heretics hard names, and Marcion received his full share of them from his opponents, especially from Tertullian.
He is compared to a wolf by Justin also, Afo/. I. 58, on account of his '' carrying away " so many "' lambs" from the truth.
16 See note 9.
11 Of Syneros we know only what is told us here.
He is not mentioned elsewhere.
Had the Marcionites split into various sects, these leaders must have been well known among the Fathers, and their names must have been frequently referred to.
As it was, they all remained Marcionites, in spite of their differences of opinion (see above, note 4).
18 §.8acKadvov, which is the reading of the majority of the MSS., and is adopted by Heinichen.
Burton and Schwegler read didacxaAetov, on the authority of two MSS.
19 Apelles was evidently like Marcion in his desire to keep within the Church as much as possible, and to associate with Church people.
He had no esoteric doctrines to conceal from the multitude, and in this he shows the great difference between himself and the Gnostics.
Marcion did not leave the Church until he was obliged to, and he founded his own church only under compulsion, pont being driven out of the Catholic community. position, and gave him a fair basis of attack.
His procedure was, therefore, more truly historical than that of Marcion, and anticipated modern methods of higher criticism.
«A true Gnostic sentiment, over against which the pious agnosticism" of Apelles is not altogether unrefreshing.
The Church did not fully conquer Gnosticism,— Gnosticism in some degree conquered the Church, and the anti-Gnostics, like Apelles, were called heretics.
It was the vicious error of'Gnosticism that it looked upon Christianity as knowledge, that it' completely identified the two, and our existing systems of theology, some of them, testify to the fact that there are still Gnostics among us.
_ 20 Tov Adyov.
21 This is a truly Christian sentiment, and Apelles should be honored for the expression of it.
It reveals clearly the religious character of Marcionism in distinction from the speculative and theological character of the Gnostics, and indeed of many of the Fathers.
With Marcion and Apelles we are in a world of sensitive moral principle and of deep religious feeling like that in which Paul and Augustine lived, but few others in the early
Church.
Rhodo, in spite of his orthodoxy, shows himself the real Gnostic over against the sincere believer, though the latter was in the eyes of the Church a "'blasphemous heretic.'"?
Apelles' noble words do honor to the movement — however heretical it was — which in that barren age of theology could give them birth.
The latter clause, taken as it stands, would seem to indicate an elevation of good works to the level of faith; but though it is pos24 Of this Callistio we know nothing; but, as has been remarked by another, he must have beew a well-known man, or Eusebius would probably have said "4 certain Callistio"
(see Salmon's a ee Smith and Wace). pon Tatian, see Bk. IV. chap. 29, note x.
26 Upon this work (mpoBAnuatwy BiBAiov), see zbzd.
V. 16.]
MONTANISM.
. aa ; | scure and hidden parts of the divine Scriptures.
Rhodo himself promises to give in a work of his own solutions of Tatian's problems."
There is also extant a Commentary of his on the Hexemeron."
But this Apelles wrote many things, in an impious manner, of the law of Moses, blaspheming the divine words in many of his works, being, as it seemed, very zealous for their refutation and overthrow."
CHAPTER XVI.
The Circumstances related of Montanus and his False Prophets.
Acainst the so-called Phrygian? heresy,
the power which always contends for the 1 Montanism must not be looked upon as a heresy in the ordinary sense of the term.
The movement lay in the sphere of life and discipline rather than in that of theology.
Its fundamental proposition was the continuance of divine revelation which was begun uncer the old Dispensation, was carried on in the time of Christ and his apostles, and reached its highest development under the dispensaticn of the Paraclete, which opened with the activity -of Montanus.
'This Montanus was a Phrygian, who, in the latter part of the second century, began to fall into states of ecstasy and to have visions, and believed himself a divinely inspired prophet, through whom the promised Paraclete spoke, and with whom therefore the dispensation of that Paraclete began.
Two noble ladies (Priscilla and Maximilla) attached themselves to Montanus, and had visions and prophesied in the same way.
These constituted the three original prophets cf the sect, and all that they taught was claimed to te of binding authority on all.
They were quite orthodox, accepted fully the doctrinal teachings of the Catholic Church, and did not pretend to alter in any way the revelation given by Christ and his apostles.
But they claimed that some things had not been revealed by them, because at that early stage the Church was not able to bear them; but that such additional revelations were now given, because the fullness of time had come which was to precede the second coming of Christ.
These revelations had to do not at all with theology, but wholly with matters of life and discipline.
They taught a rigid asceticism over against the growing worldliness of the Church, severe discipline over against its laxer methods, and finally tke universal priesthood of believers (even female), and their right to perform all the functions of church officers, over against the growing sacerdotalism of the Church.
They were thus in a sense reformers, or perhaps reactionaries is a better term, who wished to bring back, or to preserve against corruption, the original principles ard methcds of the Church.
They aimed at a puritanic reaction against worldliness, and of a democratic reaction against growing aristocracy in the Church.
They insisted that ministers were made by God alore, by the direct endowment of his Spirit in distinction from human ordination. They looked upon their prophets — supernaturally called and endowed by the Spirit—as supreme in the Church.
They claimed that all gross offenders should be excommunicated, and that neither they nor the lax should ever be re-admitted to the Church.
They encouraged celibacy, increased the number ard severity cf fasts, eschewed-worldly amusements, &c.
This rigid asceticism was enjoined by the revelation of the Spirit through their prophets, and was promoted by their belief in the speedy coming of Christ to set up his kingdom on earth, which was likewise prophesied.
They were thus pre-Millenarians or Chiliasts.
So much concerning these.
CHAPTER XIV.
The False Prophets of the Phrygians.
THE enemy of God's Church, who is emphatically a hater of good and a lover of evil, and leaves untried no manner of craft against men, was again active in causing strange heresies to spring up against the Church.'
For some persons, like venomous reptiles, crawled over Asia and Phrygia, boasting that Montanus was the Paraclete, and that the women that followed him, Priscilla and Maximilla, were prophetesses of Montanus."
CHAPTER XV.
The Schism of Blastus at Rome} Oruers, of whom Florinus? was chief, flourished at Rome.
He fell from the presbyterate of the Church, and Blastus was involved in a similar fall.
They also drew away many of the Church to their opinion, each striving to introduce his own innovations in respect to the truth.
The movement spread rapidly in Asia Minor and in North Africa, and for a time in Rome itself.
It appealed very powerfully to the sterner moralists, stricter disciplinarians, and more deeply pious minds among the Christians.
All the puritanically inclined schisms of this period attracted many of the Tener class of Christians, and this one had the additional advantage of claiming the authority of divine revelation for its strict principles.
The greatest convert was Tertullian, who, in zor or 202, attracted by the asceticism and disciplinary rigor of the sect, attached himself to it, and remained until his death its most powerful advccate.
He seems to have stood at the head of a separatist congregation of Montanists in Carthage, and yet never to have been exccmmunicated by the Catholic Church.
Montanism made so much stir in Asia Minor that synods were called before the end of the second century to consider the matter, and finally, though not without hesitation, the whole movement was officially condemned.
Later, the condemnation was ratified in Rome and also in North Africa, and Montanism gradually degenerated, and finally, after two or three centuries, entirely disappeared.
27 Whether Rhodo fulfilled this promise we do not know.
The work is mentioned by no one else, and Eusebius evidently had no knowledge of its existence, or he would have said so.
28 cis thy e£ajmepov Vrouvnwa.
This work of Rhodo's, on the Hexaemeron (or six days' work), is mentioned by no one else, and no fragments of it are known tous.
Fora notice of other works on the same subject, see below, Bk. VI. chap. 22, note 3.
29 Hippolytus (X. 16) also mentions works of ce ae against the law and the prophets.
We know of but one work of his, viz. the Syllogisms, which was devoted to the criticism of the Old Testament, and in which he worked out the antitheses of Marcion in a syllogistic form.
The work is cited only by Origen (2 Gen. II. 2) and by Ambrose (De Parad. V. 28), and they have preserved but a few brief fragments.
It must have been an extensive work, as Ambrose quotes from the 38th book, From these fragments we can see that Apelles' criticism of the Old Testament was very keen and sagacious.
For the difference between himself and Marcion in the treatment of the Old Testament, see above, note 9. The words of Eusebius, ''as it seemed," show that he had not himself seen the book, as might indeed be gathered from his general account of Apelles, for which he depended solely upon secondary sources.
But although it failed and passed away, Montanism had a marked influence on the development of the Church.
In the first place, it aroused a general distrust of prophecy, and the result was that the Church soon came to the conviction that prophecy had entirely ceased.
In the second place, the Church was led to see the necessity of emphasizing the historical Christ and historical
Christianity over against the Montanistic claims of a constantly developing revelation, and thus to put great emphasis upon the Scripture canon.
In the third place, the Church had to lay increased stress upon the organization— upon its appointed and ordained officers — over against the claims of irregular prophets who might at any time arise as organs of the Spirit.
The development of Christianity into a religion of the book and of the organization was thus greatly advanced, and the line began to be sharply drawn between the age of the apostles, in which there had been direct supernatural revelations, and the later age, in which such revelations had disappeared.
We are, undoubtedly, to date from this time that exalted conception of the glory of the apostolic age, and of its absolute sepatation from all subsequent ages, which marks so strongly the Church of succeeding centuries, and which led men to i Cf. Bk. IV. chap. 7, note 3.
2 On Montanus and the Montanists, see chap.
16.
1 The separation of chaps. 14 and 15 is unfortunate.
They are closely connected (ot sev in chap. 14 and oi 6é in chap. 15), and constitute together a general introduction to the following chapters,
Montanism being treated in chaps. 16 to 19, and the schism of Florinus and Blastus in chap. 20.
2 On Florinus and Blastus, see chap. 20,
THE CHURCH: HISTORY#OF EUSEBIUS.
Le 26. oe till the present time, not through lack of ability to refute the falsehood or bear testimony for the truth, but from fear and apprehension that I might seem to some to be making additions to the doctrines or precepts of the Gospel of the New Testament, which it is impossible for one who has chosen to live according to the Gospel, either to increase or to diminish.
But
being recently in Ancyra® in Galatia, I found the church there® greatly agitated by this novelty, not prophecy, as they call it, but rather false prophecy, as will be shown.
Therefore, to the best of our ability, with the Lord's help, we disputed in the church many days concerning these and other matters separately brought forward by them, so that the church rejoiced and was strengthened in the truth, and those of the opposite side were for the time confounded, and the adversaries were grieved.
The
presbyters in the place, our fellow-presbyter Zoticus" of Otrous also being present, requested us to leave a record of what had been said against the opposers of the truth.
We did not do this, but we promised to write it out as soon as the Lord permitted us, and to send it to them speedily." truth raised up a strong and invincible weapon,
Apolinarius of Hierapolis, whom we have mentioned before,' and with him many other men of ability, by whom abundant material for our
history has been left.
A certain one of these, in the beginning of his work against them,' first intimates that he had contended
with them in oral controversies.
He commences his work in this manner :° "Having for a very long and sufficient time,
O beloved Avircius Marcellus,® been urged by you to write a treatise against the heresy of those who are called after Miltiades,' I have hesitated endeavor to gain apostolic authority for every advance in the constitution, in the customs, and in the doctrine of the Church.
There had been little of this feeling before, but now it became universal, and it explains the great number of pseudo-apostolic works of the third and following centuries.
In the fourth place, the Chiliastic ideas of Montanism produced a reaction in the Church which caused the final rejection of all grossly physical Premillenarian beliefs which up to this time had been very common.
For further articulars in regard to Montanism, see the notes on this and the ollowing chapters.
Our chief sources for a knowledge of Montanism are to be found in the writings of Tertullian.
See, also, Epiphanius, Her. XLVIII. and XLIX., and Jerome's Epistle to Marcella (Migne, ZZ. 41).
The fragments from the anonymous anti-Montanistic writer quoted by Eusebius in this and the following chapter, and the fragments of Apollonius' work, quoted in chap. 18, are of the greatest importance.
It is to be regretted that Eusebius has preserved for us no fragments of the anti-Montanistic writings of Apolinarius and Melito, who might have given us still earlier and more trustworthy accounts of the sect.
It is probable that their works were not decided enough in their opposition to Montanism to suit Eusebius, who, therefore, chose to take his account from somewhat later, but certainly bitter enough antagonists.
The works of the Montanists themselves (except those of Tertullian) have entirely perished, but a few refers to some heretic Miltiades, but since Harnack's discussion of the matter (see especially his Texte und Untersuchungen, 1. 1, p216, note) it is more than doubtful whether a Miltiades is mentioned at all in that document.
In any case the prominent position given him here is surprising, and, as a consequence, Valesius (in his notes), Stroth, Zimmermann, Schwegler, Laemmer, and Heinichen substitute 'AAxcBvadyv (who is mentioned in chap. 3 as a prominent Montanist) for McAtvadyv.
The MSS., however, are unanimous in reading McAtcadyyv; and it is impossible to see how, if ?AAKcBiadyy had originally stood in the text, McAtcadyyv could have been substituted for it. Te is not impossible that instead of Alcibiades in chap. 3 we should read, as Salmon suggests, Miltiades.
The occurrence of the name Alcibiades in the previous sentence might explain its substitution for Miltiades immediately afterward.
It 1s at least easier to account for that change than for the change of Alcibiades to Miltiades in the present chapter.
Were Salmon's suggestion accepted, the difficulty in this case would be obviated, for we should then have a Montanist Miltiades of sufficient prominence to justify the naming of the sect after him in some quarters.
The suggestion, however, rests upon mere conjecture, and it is safer to retain the reading of our MSS. in both cases.
Until we get more light from some quarter we must be content to let the matter rest, leaving the reason for the use of Miltiades' name in this connection unexplained.
There is, of course, nothing strange in the existence of a Montanist named Miltiades; it is only the great prominence given him here which puzzles us.
Upon the ecclesiastical writer, Miltiades, and Eusebius' confusion of him with Alcibiades, see chap. 17, note 1.
"' Oracles,' or prophetic utterances, of Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla, have been preserved by Tertullian and other writers, and are printed by Bonwetsch, p. 197-200.
The literature upon Montanism is very extensive.
We may mention here C. W.
F. Walch's Ketzerhistorie, 1. p. 611-666, A. Schwegler's Der Montanismus und die christliche Kirche des zweiten Fahrh. (Tiibingen, 1841), and especially G. N. Bonwetzsch's Dze Geschichte des Montanismus
(Erlangen, 1881), which is the best work on the subject, and indispensable to the student.
Compare, also, Schaff's Ch. H7zst. II. p.
415 sq-, where the literature is given with great fullness, Salmon's article inthe Dict. of Christ. Biog., and especially Harnack's
Dogmengeschichte, I. p. 319 sq.
2 rhv Aeyouévnv Kata Ppvyas aipeotv.
The heresy of Montanus was commonly called the Phrygian heresy because it took its rise in Phrygia.
The Latins, by a solecism, called it the Cataphrygian heresy.
Its followers received other names also, e.g. Priscillianists (from the prophetess Priscilla), and Pepuziani (from Pepuza, their headquarters).
They called themselves mvevuatixot (spiritual), and the adherents of the Church Wu xexoi (carnal).
3 In Bk. IV. chaps. 21, 26 and 27, and in Bk. V. chap. 5. especially Bk. IV. chap. 27, note x.
See 4 The author of this work is unknown, Jerome (de vir. z//. 37) ascribes it to Rhodo (but see above, chap. 13, note 1).
It is sometimes ascribed to Asterius Urbanus, mentioned by Eusebius in § 17 below, but he was ccrtainly not its author (see below, note 27).
Upon the date of the work, see below, note 32.
8 Ancyra was the metropolis and one of the three principal cities of Galatia.
Quite an important town, Angora, now occupies its site, 5 The fragments of this anonymous work are given by Routh, Rel. Sac. Vol. Il. p. 183 sqq., and in English in the Ante-Nicene
Fathers, Vol. VII. p. 335 sqq_® «ata témov, which is the reading of two of the MSS. and Nicephorus, and is adopted by Burton and Heinichen.
The phrase seems harsh, but occurs again in the next paragraph.
The majority of the MSS. read card Idévrov, which is adopted by Valesius, Schwegler, Laemmer, and Crusé.
It is grammatically the easier reading, but the reference to Pontus is unnatural in this connection, and in view of the occurrence of the same phrase, xara rémov, in the ner paragraph, it seems best to read thus in the present case as well.
6 "Aovipxve, as most of the MSS. read.
Others have 'Avipxce or *ABipx.e; Nicephorus, 'ABépxce.
The name is quite commonly written Abercius in English, and the person mentioned here is identified by many scholars (among them Lightfoot) with Abercius, a prominent bishop of Hieropolis (not Hierapolis, as was formerly supposed).
A spurious Life of S. Aberczus is given by Simeon Metaphrastes (in Migne's Paty. Gr. CXV. 1211 sq.), which, although of a decidedly legendary character, rests upon a groundwork of fact as proved by the discovery, in recent years, of an epitaph from Abercius' tomb.
This Abercius was hikes in the time of Marcus Aurelius, and therefore must have held office at least twelve or fifteen years (on the date of this anonymous treatise, see below, note 32), or, if the date given by the spurious Acts for Abercius' visit to Rome be accepted (163 A.D.), at least thirty years.
On Abercius and Avercius, see the exhaustive note of Lightfoot, in his Afostolic
Fathers, Part Il. (/gnatius and Polycarp), Vol. 1. p. 477-485.
10 Of this Zoticus we know only what is told us here. be distinguished, of course, from Z, § 17, below, and in chap. 18, § 13. y He is to oticus of Comana, mentioned in Otrous (or Otrys, as it is sometimes written) was a small Phrygian town about two miles from Hieropolis (see W. H. Ramsay's paper, entitled Tvozs Villes Phrygiennes, in the Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenigue, Juillet, 1882).
Its bishop was present at the Council of Chalcedon, and also at the second Council of Niczea (see
Wiltsch's Geography and Statistics of the Church).
We ma: gather from this passage that the anonymous author of this antiMontanistic work was a presbyter (he calls Zoticus oUuTpecBvrepos), but we have no hint of his own city, though the fact that Avircius Marcellus, to whom the work was addressed, was from 7 eis Thy TOY Kata McAtLadny Acyouevwy alpectv, he occurrence of the name Miltiades, in this connection, is very puzzling, for we nowhere else hear of a Montanist Miltiades, while the man referred to here must have held a very prominent place among them,
It is true that it is commonly supposed that the Muratorian Canon
V. 16]
MONTANISM.
ole Ware ee en ca a spurious utterances at that time were indignant, and they rebuked him as one that was possessed, and that was under the control of a demon, and was led by a deceitful spirit, and was distracting the multitude ; and they forbade him to talk, remembering the distinction " drawn by the Lord and his warning to guard watchfully against the coming of false prophets."
But others imagining themselves possessed of the Holy Spirit and of a prophetic gift," were elated and not a little puffed up ; and forgetting the distinction of the Lord, they challenged the mad and insidious and seducing spirit, and were cheated and deceived by him.
In consequence of this, he could no longer be held in check, so as to keep silence.
Thus by artifice, or
rather by such a system of wicked craft, the devil, devising destruction for the disobedient, and being unworthily honored by them, secretly excited and inflamed their understandings which had already become estranged from the true faith.
And he stirred up besides two women,' and filled them with the false spirit, so that they talked wildly and unreasonably and strangely, like the person already mentioned."
And the spirit pronounced them blessed as they rejoiced and gloried in him, and puffed them up by the magnitude of his promises.
But sometimes he rebuked them openly in a wise and ey ee ea ee
Having said this with other things, in the beginning of his work, he proceeds to state the cause of the above-mentioned heresy as follows :
" Their opposition and their recent heresy which has separated them from the Church
arose on the following account.
There is said to be a certain village called Ardabau in that part of Mysia, which borders upon Phry- -gia."
There first, they say, when Gratus was proconsul of Asia," a recent convert, Montanus by name, through his unquenchable desire for leadership,®> gave the adversary opportunity against him.
And he became beside himself, and being suddenly in a sort of frenzy and ecstasy, he raved, and began to babble and utter strange things, prophesying in a manner contrary to the constant custom of the Church handed down by tradition from the be-
ginning.'* Some of those who heard his Hieropolis (see note 6), and that the anonymous companion Zoticus was from Otrous, would lead us to look in that neighborhood for the home of our author, though hardly to either of those towns (the mention of the name of the town in connection with Zoticus' name would seem to shut out the latter, and the opening sentences of the treatise would seem to exclude the former). ll éy rp Kata THY Ppvyav Mvoia.
It is not said here that Montanus was born in Ardabau, but it is natural to conclude that he was, and so that village is commonly given as his birthplace.
As we learn from this passage, Ardabau was not in Phrygia, as is often said, but in Mysia.
The boundary line between the two districts was a very indefinite one, however, and the two were often confounded by the ancients themselves, but we cannot doubt in the present instance that the very exact statement of the anonymous writer is correct.
Of the village of Ardabau itself we know nothing.
12 The exact date of the rise of Montanism cannot be determined.
The reports which we have of the movement vary greatly in their chronology.
We have no means of fixing the date of the proconsulship of the Gratus referred to here, and thus the most exact and reliable statement which we have does not help us.
In his Chron.
Eusebius fixes the rise of the movement in the year 172, and it is possible that this statement was based upon a knowledge of the time of Gratus' proconsulship.
If so, it possesses considerable weight.
The first notice we have of a knowledge of the moyement in the West is in connection with the martyrs of Lyons, who in the year 177 marked their predecessors.
To sa that there were none such at this time would be rash; but it is plain that they had become so decidedly the exception that the revival by the Montanists of the old method on a large scale and in its extremest form could appear to the Church at large only a decided innovation.
Prophecy in itself was nothing strange to them, but prophecy in this form they were not accustomed to, and did not realize that it was but a revival of the ancient form (cf. the words of our author, who is evidently quite ignorant of that form).
That they should be shocked at it is not to be wondered at, and that they should, in that age, when all such manifestations were looked upon as supernatural in their origin, regard these prophets as under the influence of Satan, is no more surprising.
'There was no other alternative in their minds.
Either the rophecies were from God or from Satan; not their content mainly, ut the manner in which they were delivered aroused the suspicion of the bishops and other leaders of the Church.
Add to that the fact that these prophets claimed supremacy over the constituted Church authorities, claimed that the Church must be guided by the revelations vouchsafed to women and apparent half-crazy enthusiasts and fanatics, and it will be seen at once that there was nothing left for the leaders of the Church but to condemn the movement, and pronounce its prophecy a fraud and a work of the Evil One.
That all prophecy should, as a consequence, fall into discredit was natural.
Clement (Strom. I. 17) gives the speaking in an ecstasy as one of the marks of a false prophet, — Montanism had evidently brought the Church to distinct consciousness on that point, — while Origen, some decades later, is no longer acquainted with prophets, and _deoe that they existed even in the time of Celsus (see Contra Cels.
Vibe Le) (see Introd. to this book, note 3) were solicited to use their influence with the bishop of Rome in favor of the Montanists
(see above, chap. 3, note 6).
This goes to confirm the approximate accuracy of the date given by Eusebius, for we should expect that the movement cannot have attracted public notice in the East very many years before it was heard of in Gaul, the home of many Christians from Asia Minor.
Epiphanius (Her. XLVIII.) gives the nineteenth year of Antoninus Pius (156-157) as the date of its beginning, but Epiphanius' figures are very confused and contradictory, and little reliance can be placed upon them in this connection.
At the same time Montanus must have begun his prophesying some years before his teaching spread over Asia Minor and began to agitate the churches and alarm the bishops, and therefore it is probable that Moatanism had a beginning some years before the date given by Eusebius; in fact, it is not impossible that Montanus_may have begun his 'work before the end of the reign of Antoninus Pius.
13 Ambition was almost universally looked upon by the Church Fathers as t':+ occasion of the various heresies and schisms.
Novatian, Donatus, and many others.were accused of it by their orthodox opponents.
That heretics or schismatics could be actuated by high and noble motives was to them inconceivable.
We are thus furnished another illustration of their utter misconception of the nature of heresy so often referred to in these notes.
15 i.e. between true and false prophets.
7° Cf. Matt. vii. 15.
MM ws ayiw mvevmare Kal Tpopntik@ Xaplo Harte.
18 Maximilla and Priscilla, or Prisca (mentioned in chap. 14).
They were married women, who left their husbands to become disciples of Montanus, were given the rank of virgins in his church, and with him were the great@st prophets of the sect.
They were regarded with the most profound reverence by all Montanists, who in many quarters were called after the name of the latter, Priscillianists.
It was a characteristic of the Montanists that they insisted upon the religious equality of men and women; that, they accorded just as high honor to the women as to the men, and listened to their
14 The fault found by the Church with Montanus' prophec was rather because of its form than because of its substance.
It was admitted that the prophecies contained much that was true, but the soberer sense of the Church at large objected decidedly to the frenzied ecstasy in which they were delivered.
That a change had come over the Church in this respect since the apostolic age is perfectly clear.
In Paul's time the speaking with tongues, which involved a similar kind of ecstasy, was very common; so, too, at the time the Didache was written the prophets spoke in an ecstasy (év mvevuare, which can mean nothing else; cf.
Harnack's edition, p. 122 sq.).
But the early enthusiasm of the Church had largely passed away by the middle of the second century; and though there were still prophets (Justin, for instance, and even Clement of Alexandria knew of them), they were not in general characterized by the same ecstatic and frenzied utterance that prophecies with the same reverence.
The human person was but an instrument of the Spirit, according to their view, and hence a woman might be chosen by the Spirit as his instrument just as well as a man, the ignorant just as well as the learned.
Tertullian, for instance, cites, in support of his doctrine of the materiality of the soul, a vision seen by one of the female members of his church, whom he believed to be in the habit of receiving revelations from God
(de anima, 9).
19 i.e, Montanus.
THE CHURCH' HISTORY OF "EUSEBIUS.
[V. 16. faithful manner, that he might seem to be a reprover.
But those of the Phrygians that were deceived were few in number. time which common report gives for the death of each. And thus they died, and ended their lives like the traitor Judas. So also, as gen-
eral report says, that remarkable person, the first steward," as it were, of their so-called prophecy, one Theodotus — who, as if at sometime taken up and received into heaven, fell into trances, and entrusted himself to the deceitful spirit — was pitched like a quoit, and died miserably." They say that these things hap-
pened in this manner.
But as we did not see them, O friend, we do not pretend to know.
Perhaps in such a manner, perhaps: not, Monta- 'nus and Theodotus and the above-mentioned
'And the arrogant spirit taught them to revile the entire universal Church under heaven, because the spirit of false prophecy received neither honor from it nor entrance into it.
For the faithful in Asia met often in many places throughout Asia to consider this matter," and examined the novel utterances and pronounced them profane, and rejected the heresy, and thus these persons were expelled from the Church and debarred from communion.""
Having related these things at the outset, and continued the refutation of their delusion through his entire work, in the second book woman died."
He says again in the same book that the
holy bishops of that time attempted to refute the spirit in Maximilla, but were prevented by others who plainly co-operated with the spirit.
He writes as follows:
" And let not the spirit, in the same work of Asterius Urbanus," say through Maximilla,
'I am driven away from the sheep like a wolf.
I am not a wolf.
I am word and spirit and power.'
But let him show clearly and prove the power in the spirit.
And by the spirit let him compel those to confess him who were then present for the purpose of proving and reasoning with the talkative spirit, — those eminent men Sais AR EI TN ai Ee eh Dee De tees ad me he speaks as follows of their end :
"Since, therefore, they called us slayers of the prophets* because we did not receive their loquacious prophets, who, they say, are those that the Lord promised to send to the people," let them answer as in God's presence :
Who is there, O friends, of these who began to talk, from Montanus and the women down, that was persecuted by the Jews, or slain by lawless men?
None.
Or has any of them been seized and crucified for the Name? Truly not. Or has one of these women ever been scourged in the synagogues of the Jews, or stoned?
No;
never anywhere.
But by another kind of death Montanus and Maximilla are said to have died.
For the report is that, incited by the spirit of frenzy, they both hung themselves ;* not at the same time, but at the worthlessness needs no demonstration.
Even our anonymous author does not venture to call it certain.
5 éwitpomos: a steward, or administrator of funds.
The existence of such an officer shows that the Montanists formed a compact ieee? at an early date, and that much stress was laid upon it
(cf. chap. 18, § 2).
According to Jerome (£4. ad Marcellam,; Migne, £4. XLI. 3) the Montanists at Pepuza had three classes of officers: first, Patriarchs; second, Cenone,; third, Bishops (Habent enim Fah ote de Pepusa Phrygie Patriarchas: secundos, guos appellant Cenonas: atgue ita in tertium, td est, pene ultimum locum Episcopi devoluuntur).
The peculiar word Cezonas occurs nowhere else, so far as I am aware, but its meaning is plain enough.
Whether it is merely a reproduction of the Greek OtKovomor (' administrators '"), or whether it is a Latin word connected with c@na, in either case the officers designated by it were economic cfficers, and thus performed the same class of duties as this €miTpcTos, Theodotus. The reliability of Jerome's report is confirmed by its oe in this point with the account of the Anonymous.
Of Theodotus himself (to be distinguished, of course, from the two Theodoti mentioned in chap. 28) we know only what is told us in this chapter and in chap. 3, above, It is plain that he was a prominent man among the early Montanists.
20 That synods should early be held to consider the subject of Montanism is not at all surprising.
Doubtless our author is quite. correct in asserting that many such met during these years. hey were probably all of them small, and only local in their character,
We do rot know the places or the dates of any of these synods, although the Libed/us Synodicus states that one was held at Hierapolis under Apolinarius, with twenty-six bishops in attendance, and another at Anchialus under Sotas, with twelve bishops present.
The authority for these synods is too late to be of much weight, and the report is just such as we should expect to have arisen upon the basis of the account of Montanism given in this chapter. It is possible, therefore, that synods were held in those two cities, but More than that cannot be said.
Upon these synods, see Hefele (Conciliengesch. 1. p.'83 sq.), who accepts the report of the Libellus Synodicus as ayostwonty:
*® The reference here seems to be to a death like that recorded by a common tradition of Simon Magus, who by the help of demons undertook to fly up to heaven, but when in mid air fell and was killed.
Whether the report in regard to Theodotus was in any wa' connected with the tradition of Simon's death we cannot tell, tEoug our author can hardly have thought of it, or he would certainly have likened Theodotus' fate to that of the arch-heretic Simon, as he likened the fate of Montanus and Maximilla to that of Judas. Whatever the exact form of death referred to, there is of course no more confidence to be placed in this report than in the preceding one.
21 Cf. the complaint of Maximilla, quoted in § 17, below.
The words are employed, of course, only in the figurative sense to indicate the hostility of the Church toward the Montanists.
The Church, of course, had at that time no power to put heretics to death, even if it had wished to do so.
The first instance of the punishment of heresy by death occurred in 385, when the Spanish bishop Priscillian and six companions were executed at Tréves.
22 Cf. Matt. xxiii. 34.
23 There is a flat contradiction between this Passage and § 21, below, where it is admitted by this same author that the Montanists have had their martyrs. _ The sweeping statements here, considered in the light of the admission made in the other passage, furnish us with a criterion of the trustworthiness and honesty of the reports of our anonymous author.
It is plain that, in his hostility to Montanism, he has no regard whatever for the truth; that his aim is to paint the heretics as black as possible, even if he is obliged to misrepresent the facts.
We might, from the general tone of the fragment which Eusebius has preserved, imagine this to be so: the piscne Passage proves it.
We know, indeed, that the Montanists ad many martyrs, and that their principles were such as to lead them to martyrdom, even when the Catholics avoided it (cf. Tertullian's De fuga in persecutione),
27 Of this Asterius Urbanus we know only what we can gather from this reference to him.
Valesius, Tillemont, and others supposed that the words év 7. attra ASyw TO Kata *"Aatéptov OipBavov were a scholium written on the margin of his copy by Eusebius himself or some ancient commentator to indicate the authorship of the anonymous work from which the fragments in this chapter are taken (and soin the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII., these fragments are given as from the work of Asterius Urbanus).
But Eusebius himself evidently did not know the author, and it is at any rate mutch easier to suppose the words a part of the text, and the work of Asterius a work which our anonymous author has been discussing and from which he quotes the words of Maximilla, just below.
Accepting. this most natural interpretation of the words, we learn that Asterius Urbanus was a Montanist who had written a work in defense of that sect.
_ 74 Whether this story is an invention of our author's, or whether it was already in circulation, as he says, we cannot tell.
Its utter 28 Cf. note 21. above.
V..17.]
MONTANISM.
et ne cence confess that they hold the truth.
And first, indeed, those called Marcionites, from the heresy of Marcion, say that they have a multitude of martyrs for Christ; yet they do not confess Christ himself in truth." and bishops, Zoticus," from the village Comana, and Julian," from Apamea, whose mouths the followers of Themiso* muzzled, refusing to permit the false and seductive spirit to be refuted by them."
Again in the same work, after saying other things in refutation of the false prophecies of Maximilla, he indicates the time when
A little farther on he continues :
"When those called to martyrdom from the Church for the truth of the faith have met with any of the so-called martyrs of the Phrygian he wrote these accounts, and mentions her predictions in which she prophesied wars and anarchy.
Their falsehood he censures: in the following manner :
"And has not this been shown clearly to be false?
For it is to-day more than thirteen years since the woman died, and there has been neither a partial nor general war in the world ; but rather, through the mercy of God, continued peace even to the Christians." 8 These heresy, they have separated from them, and died without any fellowship with them,* because they did not wish to give their assent to the spirit of Montanus and the women. And that this is true and took place in our own time in Apamea on the Mzeander,® among those who suffered martyrdom with Gaius and Alexander of Eumenia, is well known." things are taken from the second book.
I will add also short extracts from the third book, in which he speaks thus against their boasts that many of them had suffered martyrdom :
CHAPTER XVII.
Miltiades and his Works.
In this work he mentions a writer, Mil-
tiades, stating that he also wrote a certain es a SSS " When therefore they are at a loss, being refuted in all that they say, they try to take refuge jn their martyrs, alleging that they have many martyrs, and that this is sure evidence of the power of the so-called prophetic spirit that is
34 This shows the bitterness of the hostility of the Catholics toward the Montanists.
That even when suffering together for the one Lord they could not recouiind these brethren seems very sad, and it is not to be wondered at that the Montanists felt themselves badly used, and looked upon the Catholics as " slayers of the prophets," &c.
More uncompromising enmity than this we can nardly imagine.
That the Catholics, however, were sincere in their treatment of the Montanists, we cannot doubt.
It is clear: that they firmly believed that association with them meant association with the devil, and hence the deeper their devotion to Christ, the deeper must be their abhorrence of these instruments of Satan.
Compare, for instance, Polycarp's words to Marcion, quoted in Bk. IV. chap.
14, above.
The attitude of these Catholic martyrs is but of a piece with that of nearly all the orthodox Fathers toward heresy.
It only shows itself here in its extremest form. with them.
But this, as it appears, is en-
tirely fallacious.
For some of the heresies have a great many martyrs; but surely we shall not on that account agree with them or 29 Of this Bishop Zoticus we know only what is told us here and in chap. 18, §13.
On the proposed identification of Zoticus and Sotas, bahep of Anchialus, see chap. 19, note ro.
Comana (Kouavys, according to most of the MSS. and editors; Kovuarys, according to a few of the MSS. followed by Laemmer and Heinichen) was a village of Pamphylia, and is to be distinguished from Comana in Pontus and from Comana in Cappadocia (Armenia), both of which were populous and important cities.
35 Apamea Cibotus in Eastern Phrygia, a large and important commercial center.
Of the two martyrs, Gaius and Alexander, we know only what is told us here.
They were apparently both of them from Eumenia, a Phrygian town lying a short distance north of Apamea.
We have no means of fixing the date of the martyrdoms referred to here, but it seems natural to assign them to the 30 Of this ules 'we know nothing more.
His city was Apamea Cibotus or Ciboti, which, according to Wiltsch, was a small town on Mount Signia in Pisidia, to be distinguished from the important
Phrygian Apamea Cibotus on the Meander.
Whether Wiltsch has good grounds for this distinction I am unable to say.
It would certainly seem natural to think in the present case of Apamea on the Meander, inasmuch as it is spoken of without any qualifying phrase, as if there could be no doubt about its identity. reign of Marcus Aurelius, after Montanism had become somewhat widespread, and when martyrdoms were a common thing both in the East and West.
Thraseas, bishop of Eumenia, is referred to as a martyr by Polycrates in chap. 24, but he can hardly have suffered with the ones referred to here, or his name would have been mentioned instead of the more obscure names of Gaius and Alexander.
1 This Miltiades is known to us from three sources: from the present chapter, from the Roman work quoted by Eusebius in chap.
28, and from Tertullian (adv. Val. chap. 5).
Jerome also mentions him in two places (de wiv. 772.
39 and ge ad Magnum; Migne's ed. Zp. 70, § 3), but it is Fiat that he derived his knowledge solely from Eusebius.
That Miltiades was widely known at the end of the second century is clear from the notices of him by an Asiatic, a Roman, and a Carthaginian writer.
The position in w ich he is mentioned by Tertullian and by the anonymous Roman writer would seem to indicate that he flourished during the reign of Marcus
Aurelius.
His A/ology was addressed to the emperors, as we learn from § 5, below, by which might be meant either Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (161-169), or Marcus Aurelius and Commodus taraes8e)Jerome states that he flourished during the reign of ommodus (Florutt autem M. Antonint Commodt temporibus ;
Vallarsi adds a gue after Commodz?, thus making him flourish in the times of M. Antoninus axd Commodus, but there is no authority for such an addition). It is quite possible that he was still alive in the time of Commodus (though Jerome's statement is of no weight, for it rests upon no independent authority), but he must at any rate have written his .4ology before the death of Marcus Aurelius.
The only works of Miltiades named by our authorities are the antiMontanistic work referred to here, and the three mentioned by Eusebius at the close of this chapter (two books Agazust the 31 Themiso is mentioned again in chap. 18 25 a confessor, and as the author of a catholic epistle.
It is plain that he was a prominent man among the Montanists in the time of our anonymous author, that is, after the death of Montanus himself; and it is quite likely that he was, as Salmon suggests, the head of the sect.
32 This gives us a clear indication of the date of the composition of this anonymous work.
'The thirteen yee must fall either before the wars which began in the reign of Septimius Severus, or after their completion.
'The earliest possible date in the latter case is 232, and this is certainly much too late for the composition of this work, which speaks of Montanism more than once as a recent thing, and which it seems clear from other indications belongs rather to the earlier period of the movement.
If we put its composition before those wars, we cannot place it later than 192, the close of the reign of Commodus.
This would push the date of Maximilla's death back to 179, which, though it seems rather early, is not at all impossible.
The period from about 179 to 192 might very well be called a time of peace by the Christians; for no serious wars occurred during that interval, and we know that the Christians were left comparatively undisturbed throughout the reign of Commodus.
38 Our author tacitly admits in this paragraph, what he has denied in § 12, above, that the Montanists had martyrs among their number; and having admitted it, he endeavors to explain away its force.
In the previous paragraph he had claimed that the lack of martyrs among them proved that they were heretics; here he claims that the existence of such martyrs does not in any way argue for their orthodoxy. The inconsistency is glaringly apparent (cf, the Greeks, two books Against the ¥ews, and an Apology).
Tertullian speaks of him as an anti-Gnostic writer, so that it is clear that he must have written another work not mentioned by Eusebius, and it was perhaps that work that won for him the commendation of the remarks made in note 23, above).
THE CHURCHVAISTORY#OF EUSEBIUS.
[Va ry.
" But the false prophet falls into an ecstasy, in which he is without shame or fear. Beginning with purposed ignorance, he passes on, as has been stated, to involuntary madness of soul.
They cannot show that one of the old or
one of the new prophets was thus carried away in spirit.
Neither can they boast of Agabus,° or Judas,' or Silas, or the daughters of Philip,' or Ammia in Philadelphia, or Quadratus, or any others not belonging to them." book against the above-mentioned heresy. After quoting some of their words, he adds:
_ "' Having found these things in a certain work of theirs in opposition to the work of the brother
Alcibiades,? in which he shows that a prophet ought not to speak in ecstasy? I made an abridgment."
A little further on in the same work he gives a list of those who prophesied under the new covenant, among whom he enumerates a certain Ammia* and Quadratus,' saying :
And again after a little he says: "Forif
after Quadratus and Ammia in Philadelphia, as they assert, the women with Montanus received the prophetic gift, let them show who among them received it from Montanus and the women.
For the apostle thought it necessary that the prophetic gift should continue in all the Church until the final coming.
But they cannot show it, though this is the fourteenth year since the death of Maximilla." " anonymous writer quoted in chap, 28, who ranks him with Justin,
Tatian, Irenzeus, Melito, and Clement as one who had asserted the divinity of Christ.
Eusebius appears to have seen the three works which he mentions at the close of this chapter, but he does not quote from them, and no fragments of any of Miltiades' writings have been preserved to us; he seems indeed to have passed early out of the memory of the Church.
See J
A very perplexing question is his relation to Montanism, According to Eusebius, he was the author of an anti-Montanistic work, but this report is beset with serious difficulties.
The extract which Eusebius quotes just below as his authority has ' Alcibiades," not "* Miltiades," according to the unanimous testimony of the MSS. and versions.
It is very difficult to understand how Miltiades, if it stood originally in the text, could have been changed to Alcibiades.
Nevertheless, most editors have thought it necessary to make the change in the present case, and most historians (including even
Harnack) accept the alteration, and regard Miltiades as the author of a lost anti-Montanistic work, I confess that, imperative as this charge at first sight seems to be, I am unable to believe that we are justified in making it.
I should be inclined to think rather that Eusebius had misread his authority, and that, finding Miltiades referred to in the immediate context (perhaps the Montanist Miltiades mentioned in chap. 16), he had, in a hasty perusal of the work, overlooked the less familiar name Alcibiades, and had confounded Miltiades with the author of the anti-Montanistic work referred to here by our Anonymous. He would then naturally identify him at once with the Miltiades known to him through other works.
If we suppose, as Salmon suggests, that Eusebius did not copy his own extracts, but employed a scribe to do that work (as we should expect so busy a man to do), it may well be that he simply marked this extract in regard to the anti-Montanistic work without noticing his blunder, and that the scribe, copying the sentence just as it stood, correctly wrote Alcibiades instead of Miltiades.
In confirmation of the supposition that Eusebius was mistaken in making Miltiades the author of an anti-Montanistic work may be urged the fact that Tertullian speaks of Miltiades with respect, and ranks him with the greatest Fathers of the second century.
It is true that the term by which he describes him (ecclestarum sophista) may not (as Harnack maintains) imply as much praise as is given to Proculus in the same connection; nevertheless Tertullian does treat Miltiades with respect, and does accord him a high position among ecclesiastical writers.
But it is certainly difficult to suppose that Tertullian can thus have honored a man who was known to have written against Montanism.
Still further, it must be noticed that Eusebius himself had not seen Miltiades' anti-Montanistic work; he knew it only from the supposed mention of it in this anonymous work from which he was quoting.
Certainly it is not, on the whole, difficult to suppose him mistaken and our MSS. and versions correct.
I therefore prefer to retain the traditional reading Alcibiades, and have so translated.
Of the Alcibiades who wrote the anti.
Montanistic treatise referred to, we krow nothing.
Upon Miltiades, see especially Harnack's Texte und Untersuchungen, I. 1, p278 sqq., Otto's Corpus Apol. Christ. 1X. 364 sqq., and Salmon's article in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. III. 916.
He writes thus.
But the Miltiades to
whom he refers has left other monuments of his own zeal for the Divine Scriptures," in the discourses which he composed against the Greeks and against the Jews," answering each of them separately in two books."
And in addition he addresses an apology to the earthly rulers, in behalf of the philosophy which he embraced. tioned in Bk. III. chap. 37, and was evidently a man of prominence inthe East. He seems to have been a contemporary of Ammia, or tohave belonged at any rate to the succession of the earliest prophets.
He is to be distinguished from the bishop of Athens, mentioned in Bk. IV. chap. 23, and also in all probability from the apologist, mentioned in Bk, IV. chap. 3.
Cf.
Harnack, Texte und Unters. I. r. p. ro2 and 104; and see Bk. III. chap. 37, note x, above.
© On Agabus, see Acts xi. 28, xxi. 10, 7 On Judas, see Acts xv. 22, 27, 32.
8 On Silas, see Acts xv.-xviil. ass?m ; also 2 Cor. i. 19,1 Thess. i. 1,2 Thess. i. x, and x Pet. v. 12, where Silvanus (who is probably the same man) is mentioned.
® On the daughters of Philip, see Acts xxi. 9; also Bk. III. chap.
31, note 8, above.
10 On the date of Maximilla's death, see the previous chapter, note 32, To what utterance of 'the apostle"? (6 amoaToXos, which commonly means Paul) our author is referring, I am not able to discover.
I can find nothing in his writings, nor indeed in the New Testament, which would seem to have suggested the idea which he here attributes to the apostle.
The argument is a little obscure, but the writer apparently means to prove that the Montanists are not a part of the true Church, because the gift of prophecy is a mark of that Church, and the Montanists no longer possess that gift.
This seems a strange accusation to bring against the Montanists, — we might expect them to use such an argument against the Catholics.
In fact, we know that the accusation is not true, at least not entirely so; for we know that there were Montanistic prophetesses in Tertullian's church in Carthage later than this time, and also that there was still a prophetess at the time Apollonius wrote
(see chap. a § 6), which was some years later than this (see chap. 18,, note 3).
2 "AAktBiadov, with all the MSS. and versions, followed by Valesius (in his text), by Burton, Laemmer, and Crusé; Nicephorus, followed by Valesius in his notes, and by all the other editors, and by the translations of Stroth, Closs, and Stigloher, read McArvadov.
See the previous note.
8 This was the first work, so far as we know, to denounce the practice of prophesying in ecstasy.
The practice, which had doubtless fallen almost wholly into disuse, was brought into decided disrepute on account of the excesses of the Montanists, and the position taken by this Alcibiades became very soon the position of the whole
Church (see the previous chapter, note 14).
1 rept Ta Beta Adyta.
These words are used to indicate the Scriptures in Bk. WA; a 23, § 2, 1X. 9. 7, X. 4. 28, and in the Martyrs of Palestine, Xi. 2.
12 ev te ols mpds "EAAnvas cuvérage Adyots, Kal Tots mpds "Iovdaiovs.
Eusebius is the only one to mention these works, and no fragments of either of them are now extant.
See above, note 1.
13 cxarépaidiws vrobécer ev Suciv UravtTyoas cvyypaumaci.
14 Or, " to the rulers of the world" (mpds Tovs KoomLKOVs dpyov= tas).
Walesius supposed these words to refer to the provincial goyernors, but it is far more natural to refer them to the reigni ning emperors, both on account of the form of the phrase itself and also because of the fact that it was customary with all the apologists to address their apologies to the emperors themselves.
In regard to the particular emperors addressed, see above, note 1.
* Of this prophetess Ammia of Philadelphia, we know only what we can gather from this chapter.
She would seem to have lived early in the second century, possibly in the latter part of the first, and to have been a prophetess of considerable prominence.
That the Montanists had good ground for appealing to her, as well as to the other prophets mentioned as their models, cannot be denied,
These ai prophets were doubtless in their enthusiasm far more like the Montanistic prophets than like those whom the Church of the latter part of the second century alone wished to recognize,
5 This Quadratus is to be identified with the Quadratus men-