cease to be a Jew seemed all one with beginning to be a coward and
a renegade; wherefore they preferred to be more Jewish than before;
and, because they could not now observe the Law in such matters as
appertained to the Temple, on this very account they observed all other
matters of the Law more diligently than before; and, in a word, the
Temple being gone, the Law became unto them both Law and Temple also.
In former times the unbelieving Jews had spoken against the Church of
Christ and blasphemed the brethren, but only on certain occasions;
but now they began to make a rule and habit of cursing us with formal
curses, so that it became a part of their worship in the synagogue. Of
Nero, the deceased Emperor, they ceased now to speak reproachfully,
because they esteemed him as an enemy to Vespasianus, or at least, to
the saints; and Poppæa, his concubine or wife (a woman of no virtue
nor purity) they praised; but the Emperors Vespasianus and Titus were
in their eyes as monsters, to be smitten with the plagues of God. Such
a spirit of blindness fell upon the greater part of the Jewish nation
at this time; wherefore seeing they saw not, and hearing they could
not understand, nor be converted to the Lord. Such of the Jews as took
a middle course— who were commonly called Ebionites—neither wholly
separating themselves from the Church of Christ, nor yet desiring to
cast in their lot with the Gentiles, were sorely exercised at this
time; and many were the defections and apostasies among them; and the
Gospel with them was a Gospel of sorrow rather than of joy. Hereof some
judgment may be formed, and some knowledge of the history of the Church
in Syria from a certain letter written to me in the seventh year of
the Emperor Vespasianus by one Menahem, a foremost teacher among the
Ebionites, of which letter I will now set down some parts.
§ 3. OF MENAHEM, THE EBIONITE.
After many lamentations for the evils of Israel, and especially
because the Holy City had been destroyed by “Babylon” (meaning Rome)
whereby the sacrifice had been made to cease, the letter turns aside
to describe the manner of the worship of the Temple in times past and
especially the presence and glory of the High Priest: “Alas, how was
he honored in the midst of the people in his coming forth from the
sanctuary! He was as the morning star before the sun hath risen, and
as the moon at the full, yea as the sun shining upon the Temple of the
Most High, and as the rainbow giving light in the bright clouds. When
he took the portions of the priests’ hands, he himself stood by the
altar compassed round with his brethren, even as a cedar of Lebanon
compassed round with palm-trees. He stretched out his hand to the cup
and poured out the blood of the grape, a sweet-smelling savor unto the
Most High King. Then shouted the sons of Aaron, then sounded the silver
trumpets, to be heard for a remembrance before the Most High. And the
people besought the Most High by prayer before him that is merciful,
till the solemnity of the Lord was ended. O Lord, if thou didst so much
hate thy people that thou must needs cast them down, yet shouldst thou
at the least destroy them with thine own hands and not give them over
to Babylon. For what are they that inherit Babylon? Are their deeds
more righteous than ours that they should have the dominion over Sion?”
After this Menahem reproached me in his letter that I had made myself
one with “him” (meaning Paulus) “who professed to be a Jew and was no
Jew;” and he affirmed that Jesus had not come to destroy the Law but
to confirm it, and that we blasphemed God because we made Jesus to be
even as God, whereas he was a man and of the sons of men, howbeit the
deliverer and Messiah. Thence, passing again to the condition of his
nation he added this hope that “the hand which now had power“—meaning
the Emperor Vespasianus—should be wasted suddenly, and that “Babylon”
(that is to say Rome) should be cast down, and that the spoils that
she had taken from the nations should be carried back to the cities of
the East in the day of vengeance of the Lord. After these things, said
he, a time should come when men should hope much but obtain naught,
and labor, but not prosper; for the world should be turned back again
into the old silence of seven days, even as in the first beginning, so
that no man should remain; and, after that, the Judgment should come,
and the Lord Jesus should judge the earth and reward his brethren in
Israel. But still the strain of trust died away in sorrow, and the
thought of the Deliverer was lost in the thought of Israel, and the
letter came to an end in these words: “Our psaltery is laid in the
ground, our song is put to silence, our rejoicing is at an end; the
light of our candlestick is put out, and the ark of our covenant is
defiled; our priests are burned with fire, our Levites led captive, our
virgins and wives defiled and ravished, our righteous men are carried
away, our little ones destroyed, our young men brought into bondage,
and our strong men become weak; and the seat of Sion hath now lost her
honor, for she is delivered into the hands of them that hate us.”
After this manner wrote Menahem the Ebionite, a good man and devout,
and one that loved the Lord Jesus and was himself of a gentle and meek
disposition. Wherefore if even in so gentle a nature the thought of
Jesus was swallowed up in the thought of the Holy City, much more was
this likely to happen with others of his countrymen. And so indeed
it was. For each year of troubles now seemed to cast a new veil of
ignorance on the hearts of the Jews so that they might not understand
the Scriptures, nor discern the will of God, nor be brought into the
Church of Christ.
§ 4. HOW THE CHURCH WAS GUIDED AT THIS TIME BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD.
Out of all these evils and troubles one good at least was gained,
that there was no longer any danger lest the Church of Christ should
become a mere sect of the Jews. For now to all the believers of the
uncircumcision, the destruction of the City of Jerusalem seemed to be
a sign sent from God that the Law was at an end, and that all things
were to be made new in Christ, yea, and wholly new: and it became a
common saying that the vesture of the Church was not to be made up out
of the rags of the vesture of the Law, patched and botched up to serve
new needs; but that it was to be a wholly new garment, woven afresh
in one piece, without seam or rent. As for the Jews, they that stayed
in the Church, finding themselves now constrained to choose between
the old garment and the new, gave themselves with a more single mind
to the Gospel; but the greater part went out from us, as I have said.
They also that were called Ebionites, who had once had much power in
the Church so that they had persuaded many, began now to be lightly
esteemed; and whereas in former times they alone seemed to be the
Church, and the rest heretics; now the contrary came to pass, and the
Ebionites themselves came to be thought heretics—insomuch that the
name Ebionites became a reproach among the faithful—and the doctrine
of Paulus the Apostle was considered to be the doctrine of all the
Churches. From this time forth therefore there was no more fear lest
the Lord Jesus should be regarded as a mere prince or prophet in
Israel. In old days many had said that he was but as John the Baptist
and some (more especially in Ephesus) had been baptized with John’s
baptism and no other; but now all men believed that John was far
inferior to Jesus, and the traditions of the Church began to teach this
more clearly and fully than before. Also because men now perceived
that the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus was to include all nations of the
earth, and indeed to consist of Gentiles rather than Jews, for this
reason there were sought out such parables and discourses of the Lord
as taught and explained the calling of the Gentiles into the Church.
And all through the Church it was everywhere believed that Jesus was
not a mere prophet, but King of kings and Lord of lords.
When great multitudes of Greeks and many other nations had now been
brought into the Kingdom of Christ, they began, as was likely and
reasonable, to seek out traditions concerning the nature, birth, and
parentage of the King and Prophet in so great a Kingdom. The common
people among the Gentile brethren believed as a thing of course, that
he was divine and of divine parentage. “For if,” said they, “Trophonius
and Heracles have been called gods, and if we have been wont to give
the name of gods to the emperors, even such as Caius and Claudius and
Nero, how shall we deny it the Lord Jesus the King of kings?” Herein
the minds of the unlearned were doubtless led to a right conclusion,
though a philosopher might justly find fault with the method of it,
and might understand differently the “divine parentage” of which they
spoke. Nevertheless, from this desire to do honor to the Lord Jesus,
there crept into the Church some error. For some began to deny that he
was man at all, or born as men are born, affirming it to be monstrous
and incredible that a divine being should pass through a mortal womb.
Others—but these were but very few in the Gentile churches—favored
the old opinion of the Ebionites that Jesus was merely human, although
superior to any other of the children of men.
Between these two errors, some denying that the Lord Jesus was divine,
and others denying that he was human, the Church was marvellously
guided by the hand of the Lord, so that the greater part of the
brethren held fast the true belief, namely, that he was both human
and divine. For as the most part of the Gentiles revolted against
the doctrine of the Ebionites, who would have had Jesus to be a mere
prince or prophet of the Jews, so did the common sense of almost all
the brethren perceive, as by a heaven-sent instinct, that, howsoever
he might be divine, he must also needs be human and able to suffer
humanlike, or else be of no avail to bear the sins and sorrows of
the children of men. Thus by the Spirit it was revealed even to the
simplest and meanest of the brethren that in Christ Jesus, God and man
are joined together.
About this time also began the Churches to commit to writing the
traditions of the acts of the Lord; and, not long afterwards, certain
of the longer discourses of the Lord, having been written down in
Greek, were joined to the other tradition and came to be commonly read
in the churches; but this happened for the most part toward the end
of the reign of Vespasianus, or not much before. For as long as the
disciples and apostles of the Lord themselves lived, it had seemed
to the saints that there was no need of books, having as it were the
words of the Lord Jesus among them. Moreover before the destruction of
Jerusalem, the saints for the most part lived in continual expectation
of the coming of the Lord, wherefore, hoping soon to have heard his
voice from heaven, they were the less careful to record exactly the
words he had spoken on earth. But now, during the reign of Vespasianus,
when the Church had rest, and peace was everywhere, and the Lord
seemed to delay his coming, and one by one the disciples of the Lord
fell asleep, and the accounts and traditions of the words and deeds
and especially of the birth and rising again of the Lord began to be
multiplied with great diversities and not without many errors, then it
was revealed to certain of the saints that the time was come when the
traditions must be set forth in writing. But all this came to pass at
a time when I was far away in Britain; whereof the reason will be set
forth in the next chapter.
§ 5. HOW I CAME TO PHILOCHRISTUS, A DISCIPLE OF THE LORD IN BRITAIN.
About the seventh year of the Emperor Vespasianus, it pleased the Lord,
in a manner altogether unexpected and marvellous, to reveal to me
the names of my parents. There was a certain Philochristus, a Jew by
birth but not one of the Jewish faction, a man of some learning, who
had studied Greek letters at Alexandria; and he had been a disciple
of the Lord Jesus, having himself seen the Lord in the flesh. This
man I had met many years ago at Antioch, and, being drawn to him by
his love of truth and the simplicity of his nature, I had recounted
to him the story of my life, telling him the place and exact time
wherein I had been found as a child at Pergamus, and withal showing
him (for so the Lord would have it) the very token that had been hung
round the neck of my brother Chrestus, which I then wore. About this
time therefore I received a letter from Philochristus (who was then in
Britain or Londinium), telling me that he had found my former nurse,
one Stratonice, who had come to Britain as a slave in the household of
Pomponia the wife of Aulus Plautius the legate, and who now belonged
to the saints that were in Londinium. This Stratonice, it seemed, had
chanced to speak to Philochristus about her former mistress, how her
twin sons were taken from her by the guile of some runaway slave,
she being then in Asia, in the last year of the Emperor Tiberius
(mentioning the exact year when my brother and I had been found); and
when Philochristus further questioned her whether any sign or token
had been on the children, she replied that one bore round his neck
just such a token, and with the same inscription, as I had shown to
Philochristus. She added that the slave, who had been persuaded thereto
by one that desired to make a way to an inheritance through our death,
had confessed his guilt three or four years after the deed, and that
my mother (whose name was Euelpis the daughter of Nicomachus, an
Athenian by birth) had, since that time, made continual search for us,
at Pergamus and elsewhere, even till the day of her death, which had
happened in the first year of the Emperor Vespasianus; but my father
(whose name was Clinias the son of Aristodemus, also an Athenian by
birth) had died many years before.
Ever since I had spoken with the priest of Asclepius at Pergamus, I
had been assured in my mind that my mother had not willingly deserted
us; yet even now it was joy to know for certain that foul practice,
and not our mother’s fault, had cast my brother Chrestus and me upon
the world; and great desire seized me to have some speech with my old
nurse, Stratonice, concerning my parents before she died. So finding
an occasion when I could conveniently leave Colossæ, I journeyed to
Britain to Philochristus, meaning to return in a short space. But
after I had satisfied my heart’s desire, learning all the story of
the goodness and love and sorrow of my beloved mother from Stratonice
(who lived but three months after my coming to Britain) Philochristus
persuaded me to tarry with him yet longer, first for a few months, and
then for a year; and, in fine, a door being opened to me of the Lord,
I labored with him in the Church of Londinium for the space of seven
years, in peace and great joy. For I was drawn toward the old man more
than I can describe, because he wholly was given to the Lord Jesus and
abhorred vain quarrels and disputations and (which was not so in all
the saints) he added to his love of Christ such a love of letters and
learning that (next to my beloved master Paulus) he, more than any
other, seemed to join together that which is best both in the Jews and
in the Greeks.
From the lips of this my beloved teacher I received the tradition of
the words and deeds of the Lord pure and uncorrupted; and it was no
small strength and refreshment to hear the very sayings of Christ
himself from one whose love of truth appeared in this saying of his,
a saying often repeated in his doctrine, that “he loved to think of
the Lord Jesus as Son of man, and also as Son of God; but he loved no
less to think of him as the Eternal Truth, whom no lie could serve nor
please.” Moreover, because he discerned the divine nature to consist
not so much in the performance of fleshly wonders as in the working
of spiritual works, for this cause he never was led to magnify (as I
had heard some magnify) the mighty acts of Jesus in the healing of
the diseases of the body; but he spoke the more of his divine power
in casting down mountains of sin, and in the uprooting of error,
and in satisfying the hungry soul with bread, and in cleansing the
spotted soul from all the defilements of Satan. Therefore in all his
discourses, without any straining after new and convenient traditions,
and without any fear and avoidance of old traditions as being not
convenient, he spoke of the Lord Jesus as being verily a man in all
points, sin only excepted; subject, as men are subject, to birth and
pain and death; but, none the less, as being the Beginning and the
Goal of human life, the Eternal Love of God, spiritually begotten of
God before the foundation of the world. In this doctrine I rejoiced,
and this doctrine I strove to teach; and it was a great delight that
here were no Greek factions nor Jewish factions, nor disputations
about traditions, or prophecies, or aught else; but all was peace and
harmony, as if in some haven, shut in and sheltered by the hills,
wherein the mariner, resting from long tossing on the deeps, can scarce
hear the roaring of the sea without.
But after seven years had thus passed away in peace it being now
the second year of the Emperor Domitianus, it came to pass that new
troubles fell upon the Church; and, the Bishop of Berœa having borne
witness for the Lord with his blood in a tumult in that city, I was
called to the charge of the flock there; and the voice of the Lord bade
me go. So bidding farewell to the beloved Elder Philochristus with much
sorrow, well knowing that I should not again behold him in the flesh, I
set forth with his blessing upon my journey, intending first to go to
Rome and there to tarry some days, and so to Berœa.
§ 6. OF THE CHURCH IN ROME, AND OF THE NEW GOSPELS.
When I came to Rome I was well received of the brethren, and I tarried
there two months, observing the manner of their worship, and the
teaching of the catechumens and the discourses of the elders to the
faithful. But I seemed at first to be listening to a new Gospel; so
great a change had fallen on the Church since I had last tarried in
the great city, about fifteen years before. This appeared, not only in
their worship, but also in the pictures and sculptures wherewith they
had begun to adorn the tombs of those that fell asleep in the Lord;
for in these I perceived that those very beliefs whereof I had written
to Artemidorus as being currently reported among the faithful but not
yet added to the Tradition, were now accepted by all. For example,
when I entered into one of the places where the congregations commonly
assemble themselves for worship—these are quarries, after the manner
of galleries, hewn out of the rock under the earth beneath the city,
commonly called catacombs, and used for entombments by the faithful—I
perceived there the figure of a certain prophet, with a scroll in his
hand, pointing to a Woman which bare a child in her arms, and above
the child was a star; and I questioned my companions whether this was
the Lord Jesus, the Son of the Virgin Mother, and they said “Yes,” but
when I went on to speak of the Virgin as the Spiritual Sion, which is
the Church of God, then they said, “Nay, but it sheweth the mother
of our Lord according to the flesh, according to the saying of the
prophet, ‘Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call
his name Immanuel.’” Then asking concerning the star, I said that I
supposed that it represented the brightness of the Messiah, even as it
was written in the Scriptures that “a star should come out of Jacob.”
To this they assented, “but,” added one, “it is also well-known that a
star, visible to the eyes of men, did verily shine forth in the days of
Herod, being seen of many nations, and especially in the East, insomuch
that then was fulfilled the saying of the Psalms that the kings of
Arabia and Saba should bring gifts.” “Are these things then,” said I,
“contained in the Traditions of the Acts of the Lord?” Then he that had
spoken replied, “No, not in the Tradition, but in a certain supplement
which is now beginning everywhere to be read in all the churches, and
it is said to have been put forth by the interpreters and disciples of
one of the Apostles:” but another correcting him, said that one of the
Apostles himself had written it, not indeed Petrus nor Jacobus who were
unlearned men ignorant of letters, but in all likelihood Mattheus, as
having been in earlier days a tax-gatherer and therefore ready with his
pen.
Going on a little further I saw on the walls another picture of men
supping at a table, and the food two fishes and some loaves. When I
asked what this meant, they told me that it signified the banquet of
the kingdom of God wherein all the faithful partake of the body of the
Lord who, said they, is our Bread of Life, and also our true ΙΧΘΥΣ; and
“of the two fishes,” said they, “the one denoteth Baptism, whereby the
faithful enter into Christ, and the other the Lord’s Supper, whereby
they are made partakers of the Lord’s body, so that they remain in
him and he in them.” “And is this also,” I asked, “in the Tradition?”
“Neither in the Tradition,” said they, “nor in the Supplement, but
it is a symbol.” Then I took courage to speak concerning that other
parable of a banquet, wherein I had been wont to teach how the Twelve
had been bidden by the Lord Jesus to minister both of the Bread of
Life and of the Fishes, asking them whether they interpreted this also
spiritually and not according to the letter, even as they interpreted
that other story of the ΙΧΘΥΣ. But hereat their countenances changed,
and they said, “Nay, but this story is written according to the letter
in the Tradition of the Gospel.” Then I told them how Philochristus
the Elder had related to me that the Lord Jesus himself, in speaking
of these matters, had rebuked his disciples because they understood
him not, saying unto them, that when he spoke of leaven, and of bread,
he spoke not of earthly bread or leaven, but of spiritual leaven and
spiritual bread. But they replied that “it was not so written in the
Tradition now, and that Philochristus (albeit to be reverenced as a
faithful disciple of the Lord) was not to be too much trusted as a
remembrancer of the Tradition, because he had lived now many years
apart from the rest of the saints, not having experience of that which
had been from year to year newly revealed to the Church, so that
he knew naught save what he himself had heard and seen of the Lord
Jesus, and this in all likelihood faintly and imperfectly remembered
by him, as being well-stricken in years, not much less than fourscore
and ten.” It came into my mind that to be thus all alone, remembering
and teaching the words of Christ which he himself had heard (apart
from controversies and colors and glosses of those who were disputing
rather than remembering) was perhaps rather a help than a harm to
Philochristus. However at that time I said no more.
On the morrow, coming somewhat late into the congregation in the midst
of their worship, I heard them singing a psalm which, because there
arose hence a question afterwards between myself and the brethren,
I will here set down; and as near as I can remember, the words were
these:—
1.
“O Pilot of our bark
What though the night be dark?
What though the tempest rave?
Thou still canst hear and save.
2.
“Tossed by the troubled sea,
O Lord, we cry to thee,
And through the murky night,
What figure meets our sight?
3.
“Lo, pitying our fear
The Lord himself draws near,
Walking upon the wave
His helpless ones to save.
4.
“In terror of his face
Vanish the clouds apace,
His footsteps on the deep
Lull every wave to sleep.
5.
“The winds obey his will,
The raging storm is still;
Then turn we to adore
And lo, at hand the shore.”