Section 81
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 49 For Joseph was esteemed the father of Christ, because the Virgin being betrothed to him, "she was found with child by the Holy Ghost before they came together," as the narrative of the holy gospels shews. This James, therefore, whom the ancients, on ac count of the excellence of his virtue, surnamed the Just, was the first that received the episcopate of the church at Jerusalem. But Clement, in the sixth book of his Institutions, represents it thus : " Peter, and James, and John, after the ascension of our Saviour, though they had been preferred by our Lord, did not contend for the honour, but chose James the Just as bishop of Jerusalem." And the same author, in the seventh book of the same work, writes also thus : " The Lord imparted the gift of knowledge to James the Just, to John and Peter after his resurrection, these de livered it to the rest of the apostles, and they to the seventy, of whom Barnabas was one. There were, however, two Jameses ; one called the Just, who was thrown from a wing of the temple, and beaten to death with a fuller's club, and another, who was beheaded. Paul also makes mention of the Just in his epistles. " But other of the apostles," says he, " saw I none, save James the brother of our Lord." About this time also, the circumstances of our Saviours promise, in reference to the king of the Osrhoenians, took place. For Thomas, under a divine impulse, sent Thaddeus as herald and evangelist, to proclaim the doctrine of Christ, as we have shown from the public documents found there. When he came to these places, he both healed Agbarus by the word of Christ, and astonished all there with the extraordinary miracles he performed. After having sufficiently disposed them by his works, and led them to adore the power of Christ, he made them disciples of the Saviour's doctrine. And even to this day, the whole city of Edessa is devoted to the name of Christ ; exhibiting no common evidence of the beneficence of our Saviour likewise to them. And let this suffice, as taken from the accounts given in ancient documents. But let us pass again to the Holy Scrip tures. As the first and greatest persecution arose among the Jews after the martyrdom of Stephen, against the clmrcli of Jerusalem, and all the disciples except the twelve were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria ; some, as the Holy Scriptures say, coming as G