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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 01 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 21.02.22 Book IV Part 3
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40 But the jealous and envious Evil One, the adversary of the race of the righteous, when he saw the greatness of his martyrdom, and his blameless life from the beginning, and when he saw him crowned with the crown of immortality and bearing off an incontestable prize, took care that not even his body should be taken away by us, although many desired to do it and to have communion with his holy flesh.
41 Accordingly certain ones secretly suggested to Nicetes, the father of Herod and brother of Alce,hyperlink that he should plead with the magistrate not to give up his body, `lest,' it was said, `they should abandon the crucified One and begin to worship this man.'hyperlink They said these things at the suggestion and impulse of the Jews, who also watched as we were about to take it from the fire, not knowing that we shall never be able either to forsake Christ, who suffered for the salvation of the whole world of those that are saved, or to worship any other.
42 For we worship him who is the Son of God, but the martyrs, as disciples and imitators of the Lord, we love as they deserve on account of their matchless affection for their own king and teacher. May we also be made partakers and fellow-disciples with them.
43 The centurion, therefore, when he saw the contentiousness exhibited by the Jews, placed him in the midst and burned him, as was their custom. And so we afterwards gathered up his bones. which were more valuable than precious stones and more to be esteemed than gold, and laid them in a suitable place.
44 There the Lord will permit us to come together as we are able, in gladness and joy to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom,hyperlink for the commemoration of those who have already fought and for the training and preparation of those who shall hereafter do the same.
45 Such are the events that befell the blessed Polycarp, who suffered martyrdom in Smyrna with the elevenhyperlink from Philadelphia. This one man is remembered more than the others by all, so that even by the heathen he is talked about in every place."
46 Of such an end was the admirable and apostolic Polycarp deemed worthy, as recorded by the brethren of the church of Smyrna in their epistle which we have mentioned. In the same volumehyperlink concerning him are subjoined also other martyrdoms which took place in the same city, Smyrna, about the same period of time with Polycarp's martyrdom. Among them also Metrodorus, who appears to have been a proselyte of the Marcionitic sect, suffered death by fire.
47 A celebrated martyr of those times was a certain man named Pionius. Those who desire to know his several confessions, and the boldness of his speech, and his apologies in behalf of the faith before the people and the rulers, and his instructive addresses and moreover, his greetings to those who had yielded to temptation in the persecution, and the words of encouragement which he addressed to the brethren who came to visit him in prison, and the tortures which he endured in addition, and besides these the sufferings and the nailings, and his firmness on the pile, and his death after all the extraordinary trials,hyperlink -those we refer to that epistle which has been given in the Martyrdoms of the Ancients,hyperlink collected by us, and which contains a very full account of him.
48 And there are also records extant of others that suffered martyrdom in Pergamus, a city of Asia,-of Carpus and Papylus, and a woman named Agathonice, who, after many and illustrious testimonies, gloriously ended their lives.hyperlink
Chapter XVI. Justin the Philosopher Preaches the Word of Christ in Rome and Suffers Martyrdom.
1 About this timehyperlink Justin, who was mentioned by us just above,hyperlink after he had addressed a second work in behalf of our doctrines to the rulers already named,hyperlink was crowned with divine martyrdom,hyperlink in consequence of a plot laid against him by Crescens,hyperlink a philosopher who emulated the life and manners of the Cynics, whose name he bore. After Justin had frequently refuted him in public discussions he won by his martyrdom the prize of victory, dying in behalf of the truth which he preached.
2 And he himself, a man most learned in the truth, in his Apology already referred tohyperlink clearly predicts how this was about to happen to him, although it had not yet occurred.
3 His words are as follows:hyperlink "I, too,hyperlink therefore, expect to be plotted against and put in the stockshyperlink by some one of those whom I have named, or perhaps by Crescens, that unphilosophical and vainglorious man. For the man is not worthy to be called a philosopher who publicly bears witness against those concerning whom he knows nothing, declaring, for the sake of captivating and pleasing the multitude, that the Christians are atheistical and impious.hyperlink
4 Doing this he errs greatly. For if he assails us without having read the teachings of Christ, he is thoroughly depraved, and is much worse than the illiterate, who often guard against discussing and bearing false witness about matters which they do not understand. And if he has read them and does not understand the majesty that is in them, or, understanding it, does these things in order that he may not be suspected of being an adherent, he is far more base and totally depraved, being enslaved to vulgar applause and irrational fear.
5 For I would have you know that when I proposed certain questions of the sort and asked him in regard to them, I learned and proved that he indeed knows nothing. And to show that I speak the truth I am ready, if these disputations have not been reported to you, to discuss the questions again in your presence. And this indeed would be an act worthy of an emperor.
6 But if my questions and his answers have been made known to you, it is obvious to you that he knows nothing about our affairs; or if he knows, but does not dare to speak because of those who hear him, he shows himself to be, as I have already said,hyperlink not a philosopher, but a vainglorious man, who indeed does not even regard that most admirable saying of Socrates."hyperlink These are the words of Justin.
7 And that he met his death as he had predicted that he would, in consequence of the machinations of Crescens, is stated by Tatian,hyperlink a man who early in life lectured upon the sciences of the Greeks and won no little fame in them, and who has left a great many monuments of himself in his writings. He records this fact in his work against the Greeks, where he writes as follows:hyperlink "And that most admirable Justin declared with truth that the aforesaid persons were like robbers."
8 Then, after making some remarks about the philosophers, he continues as follows:hyperlink "Crescens, indeed, who made his nest in the great city, surpassed all in his unnatural lust, and was wholly devoted to the love of money.
9 And he who taught that death should be despised, was himself so greatly in fear of it that he endeavored to inflict death, as if it were a great evil, upon Justin, because the latter, when preaching the truth, had proved that the philosophers were gluttons and impostors." And such was the cause of Justin's martyrdom.
Chapter XVII. The Martyrs Whom Justin Mentions in His Own Work.
1 The same man, before his conflict, mentions in his first Apologyhyperlink others that suffered martyrdom before him, and most fittingly records the following events.
2 He writes thus:hyperlink "A certain woman lived with a dissolute husband; she herself, too, having formerly been of the same character. But when she came to the knowledge of the teachings of Christ, she became temperate, and endeavored to persuade her husband likewise to be temperate, repeating the teachings, and declaring the punishment in eternal fire which shall come upon those who do not live temperately and conformably to right reason.
3 But he, continuing in the same excesses, alienated his wife by his conduct. For she finally, thinking it wrong to live as a wife with a man who, contrary to the law of nature and right, sought every possible means of pleasure, desired to be divorced from him.
4 And when she was earnestly entreated by her friends, who counseled her still to remain with him, on the ground that her husband might some time give hope of amendment, she did violence to herself and remained.
5 But when her husband had gone to Alexandria, and was reported to be conducting himself still worse, she-in order that she might not, by continuing in wedlock, and by sharing his board and bed, become a partaker in his lawlessness and impiety-gave him what wehyperlink call a bill of divorce and left him.
6 But her noble and excellent husband,-instead of rejoicing, as he ought to have done, that she had given up those actions which she had formerly recklessly committed with the servants and hirelings, when she delighted in drunkenness and in every vice, and that she desired him likewise to give them up,-when she had gone from him contrary to his wish, brought an accusation concerning her, declaring that she was a Christian.
7 And she petitioned you, the emperor, that she might be permitted first to set her affairs in order, and afterwards, after the settlement of her affairs, to make her defense against the accusation. And this you granted.
8 But he who had once been her husband, being no longer able to prosecute her, directed his attacks against a certain Ptolemaeus,hyperlink who had been her teacher in the doctrines of Christianity, and whom Urbiciushyperlink had punished. Against him he proceeded in the following manner:
9 "He persuaded a centurion who was his friend to cast Ptolemaeus into prison, and to take him and ask him this only: whether he were a Christian? And when Ptolemaeus, who was a lover of truth, and not of a deceitful and false disposition, confessed that he was a Christian, the centurion bound him and punished him for a long time in the prison.
10 And finally, when the man was brought before Urbicius he was likewise asked this question only: whether he were a Christian? And again, conscious of the benefits which he enjoyed through the teaching of Christ, he confessed his schooling in divine virtue.
11 For whoever denies that he is a Christian, either denies because he despises Christianity, or he avoids confession because he is conscious that he is unworthy and an alien to it; neither of which is the case with the true Christian.
12 And when Urbicius commanded that he be led away to punishment, a certain Lucius,hyperlink who was also a Christian, seeing judgment so unjustly passed, said to Urbicius, `Why have you punished this man who is not an adulterer, nor a fornicator, nor a murderer, nor a thief, nor a robber, nor has been convicted of committing any crime at all, but has confessed that he bears the name of Christian? You do not judge, O Urbicius, in a manner befitting the Emperor Pius, or the philosophical sonhyperlink of Caesar, or the sacred senate.' And without making any other reply, he said to Lucius, `Thou also seemest to me to be such an one.' And when Lucius said, `Certainly,' he again commanded that he too should be led away to punishment. But he professed his thanks, for he was liberated, he added, from such wicked rulers and was going to the good Father and King, God. And still a third having come forward was condemned to be punished."
14 To this, Justin fittingly and consistently adds the words which we quoted above,hyperlink saying, "I, too, therefore expect to be plotted against by some one of those whom I have named," &c.hyperlink
Chapter XVIII. The Works of Justin Which Have Come Down to Us.
1 This writer has left us a great many monuments of a mind educated and practiced in divine things, which are replete with profitable matter of every kind. To them we shall refer the studious, noting as we proceed those that have come to our knowledge.hyperlink
2 There is a certain discoursehyperlink of his in defense of our doctrine addressed to Antoninus surnamed the Pious, and to his sons, and to the Roman senate. Another work contains his second Apologyhyperlink in behalf of our faith, which he offered to him who was the successor of the emperor mentioned and who bore the same name, Antoninus Verus, the one whose times we are now recording.
3 Also another work against the Greeks,hyperlink in which he discourses at length upon most of the questions at issue between us and the Greek philosophers, and discusses the nature of demons. It is not necessary for me to add any of these things here.
4 And still another work of his against the Greeks has come down to us, to which he gave the title Refutation. And besides these another, On the Sovereignty of God,hyperlink which he establishes not only from our Scriptures, but also from the books of the Greeks. Still further, a work entitled Psaltes,hyperlink and another disputation On the Soul, in which, after propounding various questions concerning the problem under discussion, he gives the opinions of the Greek philosophers, promising to refute it, and to present his own view in another work.
6 He composed also a dialogue against the Jews,hyperlink which he held in the city of Ephesus with Trypho, a most distinguished man among the Hebrews of that day. In it he shows how the divine grace urged him on to the doctrine of the faith, and with what earnestness he had formerly pursued philosophical studies, and how ardent a search he had made for the truth.hyperlink
7 And he records of the Jews in the same work, that they were plotting against the teaching of Christ, asserting the same things against Trypho: "Not only did you not repent of the wickedness which you had committed, but you selected at that time chosen men, and you sent them out from Jerusalem through all the land, to announce that the godless heresy of the Christians had made its appearance, and to accuse them of those things which all that are ignorant of us say against us, so that you become the causes not only of your own injustice, but also of all other men's."hyperlink
8 He writes also that even down to his time prophetic gifts shone in the Church.hyperlink And he mentions the Apocalypse of John, saying distinctly that it was the apostle's.hyperlink He also refers to certain prophetic declarations, and accuses Trypho on the ground that the Jews had cut them out of the Scripture.hyperlink A great many other works of his are still in the hands of many of the brethren.hyperlink
Footnotes
86 This shows that the martyrs were highly venerated even at this early date, as was indeed most natural, and as is acknowledged by the writers themselves just below. But it does not show that the Christians already worshiped or venerated their relics as they did in later centuries. The heathen, in their own paganism, might easily conclude from the Christians' tender care of and reverence for the martyrs' relics that they also worshiped them.
87 This is, so far as I am aware, the earliest notice of the annual celebration of the day of a martyr's death, a practice which early became so common in the Church. The next reference to the custom is in Tertullian's de Corona, 3 (cf. also Scorp. 15). So natural a practice, however, and one which was soon afterward universal, need not surprise us at this early date (see Ducange, Natalis, and Bingham, Ant. XIII. 9. 5, XX. 7. 2).
88 The majority of the mss. read dwdeka tou en Emurnh marturhsantoj, which, however, is quite ungrammatical as it stands in the sentence, and cannot be accepted Heinichen reads dwdeka ton en k.t.l., changing the genitive of the majority of the mss. to an accusative, but like them, as also like Rufinus, making twelve martyrs besides Polycarp. But the mss. of the epistle itself read dwdekatoj Em. marturhsaj, thus making only eleven martyrs in addition to Polycarp, and it cannot be doubted that this idiomatic Greek construction is the original. In view of that fact, I am constrained to read with Valesius, Schwegler, and Zahn (in his note on this passage in his edition of the epistle), dwdekaton en Em. marturhsanta, translating literally, "suffered martyrdom with those from Philadelphia, the twelfth"; or, as I have rendered it freely in the text, "suffered martyrdom with the eleven from Philadelphia." It is, of course, possible that Eusebius himself substituted the dwdeka for the dwdekatoj, but the variations and inconsistencies in the mss. at this point make it more probable that the change crept in later, and that Eusebius agreed with his original in making Polycarp the twelfth martyr, not the thirteenth. Of these eleven only Germanicus is mentioned in this epistle, and who the others were we do not know. They cannot have been persons of prominence, or Polycarp's martyrdom would not so completely have overshadowed theirs.
89 grafh. These other accounts were not given in the epistle of the Smyrnaeans, but were doubtless appended to that epistle in the ms. which Eusebius used. The accounts referred to are not found in any of our mss. of the epistle, but there is published in Ruinart's Acta Martyrum Sincera, p. 188 sq., a narrative in Latin of the martyrdom of a certain Pionius and of a certain Marcionist Metrodorus, as well as of others, which appears to be substantially the same as the document which Eusebius knew in the original Greek, and which he refers to here. The account bears all the marks of genuineness, and may be regarded as trustworthy, at least in the main points. But Eusebius has fallen into a serious chronological blunder in making these other martyrs contemporaries of Polycarp. We learn from a notice in the document given by Ruinart that Pionius, Metrodorus, and the others were put to death during the persecution of Decius, in 250 a.d., and this date is confirmed by external evidence. The document which Eusebius used may not have contained the distinct chronological notice which is now found in it, or Eusebius may have overlooked it, and finding the narrative given in his ms. in close connection with the account of Polycarp's martyrdom, he may have jumped hastily to the conclusion that both accounts relate to the same period of time. Or, as Lightfoot suggests, in the heading of the document there may have stood the words h auth peoiodoj tou xoonou (a peculiar phrase, which Eusebius repeats) indicating (as the words might indicate) that the events took place at the same season of the year, while Eusebius interpreted them to mean the same period of trine. Upon these Acts, and upon Metrodorus and Pionius, see Lightfoot, I. p. 622 sqq. The Life of Polycarp, which purports to have been written by Pionius, is manifestly spurious and entirely untrustworthy, and belongs to the latter part of the fourth century. The true Pionius, therefore, who suffered under Decius, and the Pseudo-Pionius who wrote that Life are to be sharply distinguished (see Lightfoot, I. p. 626 sqq.).
90 This is an excellent summary of Pionius' sufferings, as recorded in the extant Acts referred to in the previous note.
91 This is the Collection of Ancient Martyrdoms, which is no longer extant, but which is referred to by Eusebius more than once in his History. For particulars in regard to it, see above, p. 30 sq.
92 A detailed account of the martyrdoms of Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice is extant in numerous mss., and has been published more than once. It has, however, long been recognized as spurious and entirely untrustworthy. But in 1881 Aubè published in the Revue Archavalogique (Dec., p. 348 sq.) a shorter form of the Acts of these martyrs, which he had discovered in a Greek ms. in the Paris Library. There is no reason to doubt that these Acts are genuine and, in the main, quite trustworthy. The longer Acts assign the death of these martyrs to the reign of Decius, and they have always been regarded as suffering during that persecution. Aubè, in publishing his newly discovered document, still accepted the old date; but Zahn, upon the basis of the document which he had also seen, remarked in his Tatian's Diatessaron (p. 279) that Eusebius was correct in assigning these martyrdoms to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and Lightfoot (I. p. 625) stated his belief that they are to be assigned either to that reign or to the reign of Septimius Severus. In 1888 Harnack (Texte und Unters. III. 4) published a new edition of the Acts from the same ms. which Aubè had used, accompanying the text with valuable notes and with a careful discussion of the age of the document. He has proved beyond all doubt that these martyrs were put to death during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and that the shorter document which we have contains a genuine account related by an eye-witness. These are evidently the Acts which Eusebius had before him. In the spurious account Carpus is called a bishop, and Papylus a deacon. But in the shorter account they are simply Christians, and Papylus informs the judge that he is a citizen of Thyatira.
Eusebius apparently did not include the account of these martyrs in his collection of Ancient Martyrdoms, and Harnack concludes from that that he found in it something that did not please him, viz. the fanaticism of Agathonice, who rashly and needlessly rushes to martyrdom, and the approval of her conduct expressed by the author of the Acts. We are reminded of the conduct of the Phrygian Quintus mentioned in the epistle of the Smyrnaeans but in that epistle such conduct is condemned.
93 That is, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, 161-169 a.d. Inasmuch as Eusebius is certainly in error in ascribing the death of Polycarp, recorded in the previous chapter, to the reign of Marcus Aurelius (see note 2 on that chapter), the fact that he here connects Justin's death with that reign furnishes no evidence that it really occurred then; but we have other good reasons for supposing that it did (see below, note 4).
94 In chap. 11.
95 Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, whom he mentioned at the close of chap. 14, and the events of whose reign he is now ostensibly recording. But in regard to this supposed second apology addressed to them, see chap. 18, note 3.
96 That Justin died a martyr's death is the universal tradition of antiquity, which is crystallized in his name. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. I. 28. 1) is the first to mention it, but does so casually, as a fact well known. The only account of his martyrdom which we have is contained in the Acta Martyrii Justini Philosophi (Galland. I. 707 sq.), which, although belonging to a later age (probably the third century), yet bear every evidence of containing a comparatively truthful account of Justin's death. According to these Acts, Justin, with six companions, was brought before Rusticus, prefect of ome, and by him condemned to death, upon his refusal to sacrifice to the gods. The date of his martyrdom is very difficult to determine. There are two lines of tradition, one of which puts his death under Antoninus Pius, the other trader Marcus Aurelius. The latter has the most in its favor; and if we are to accept the report of the Acta Justini (which can be doubted least of all at this point), his death took place under Rusticus, who, as we know, became prefect of Rome in 163. Upon the date of Justin's death, see especially Holland, in Smith and Wace, III. p. 562 sq.
97 Of this cynic philosopher Crescens we know only what is told us by Justin and Tatian, and they paint his character in the blackest colors. Doubtless there was sufficient ground for their accusations; but we must remember that we have his portrait only from the pen of his bitterest enemies. In the Acta Crescens is not mentioned in connection with the death of Justin,-an omission which is hardly, to be explained, except upon the supposition of historical truthfulness. Eusebius' report here seems to rest solely upon the testimony of Tatian (see §§8 and 9, below), but the passage of Tatian which he cites does not prove his point; it simply proves that Crescens plotted against Justin; whether his plotting was successful is not stated, and the contrary seems rather to be implied (see note 13, below).
98 Harnack thinks that Eusebius at this point wishes to convey the false impression that he quotes from the second apology, whereas he really quotes from what was to him the first, as can be seen from chap. 17. But such conduct upon the part of Eusebius would be quite inexplicable (at the beginning of the very next chapter, e.g., he refers to this same apology as the first), and it is far better to refer the words en th dedhlwmenh apologia to chap. 13 sq., where the apology is quoted repeatedly.
99 Justin, Apol. II. 3.
100 kagw oun. In the previous chapter (quoted by Eusebius in the next chapter) Justin has been speaking of the martyrdom of various Christians, and now goes on to express his expectation that he, too, will soon suffer death.
101 culw entinaghnai. Compare Acts xvii. 24, and see Otto's note on this passage, in his edition of Justin's Apology (Corpus Apol. Christ. I. p. 204). He says: culin erat truncus foramina habens, quibus pedes captivorum immit/bantur, ut securius in carcere servarentur aut tormentis vexarentur ("a culon was a block, with holes in which the feet of captives were put, in order that they might be kept more securely in prison, or might be afflicted With tortures").
102 This accusation was very commonly made against the Christians in the second century. See above, chap. 7, note 20.
103 In §3, above.
104 This saying of Socrates is given by Justin as follows: all outi ge pro thj alhqeiaj timhteoj anhr, "a man must not be honored before the truth" (from Plato's Republic, Bk. X.). It is hard to say why Eusebius should have omitted it. Perhaps it was so well known that he did not think it necessary to repeat it, taking for granted that the connection would suggest the same to every reader, or it is possible that the omission is the fault of a copyist, not of Eusebius himself.
105 On Tatian and his writings, see below, chap. 29.
Eusebius has been accused by Dembowski, Zahn, Harnack, and others of practicing deception at this point. The passage from Tatian's Oratio ad Graecos, which Eusebius appeals to for testimony in regard to Justin's death, and which he quotes just below, is not given by him exactly as it stands in the extant text of the Oratio. In the latter we read, "He who taught that death should be despised was himself so greatly in fear of it, that he endeavored to inflict death as if it were an evil upon Justin, and indeed on me also, because when preaching he had proved that the philosophers were gluttons and impostors." The difference between the two texts consists in the substitution of the word megalw for the words kai eme wj; and it is claimed that this alteration was intentionally made by Eusebius. As the text stands in Tatian, the passage is far from proving that Justin's death was caused by the machinations of Crescens, for Tatian puts himself on a level with Justin as the object of these machinations, and of course since they did not succeed in his case, there is no reason to suppose that they succeeded in Justin's case. It is claimed, therefore, that Justin, realizing this, struck out the kai eme wj in order to permit the reader to gather from the passage that Tatian meant to imply that the plots of Crescens were successful, and resulted in Justin's death. Before accepting this conclusion, however, it may be well to realize exactly what is involved in it. The change does not consist merely in the omission of the words kai eme wj, but in the substitution for them of the word megalw. It cannot, therefore, be said that Eusebius only omitted some words, satisfying his conscience that there was no great harm in that; whoever made the change, if he did it intentionally, directly falsified the text, and substituted the other word for the sake of covering up his alteration; that is, he committed an act of deceit of the worst kind, and deliberately took steps to conceal his act. Certainly such conduct is not in accord with Eusebius' general character, so far as we can ascertain it from his writings. Even Zahn and Harnack, who accuse him of intentional deception here, yet speak of his general conscientiousness, and treat this alteration as one which Eusebius allowed himself to make while, at the same time, his "conscientiousness did not permit him even this time to change truth completely into untruth." But if he could allow himself to make so deliberate an alteration, and then cover the change by inserting another word, there is little cause to speak of "conscientiousness" in connection with the matter; if he could do that, his conscience would certainly permit him to make any false quotations, however great, so long as he thought he could escape detection. But few would care to accuse Eusebius of possessing such a character. Certainly if he possessed it, we should find clearer traces of it than we do in his History, where we have the opportunity to control a large portion of his statements on an immense variety of subjects. Moreover, for such a grave act of deception as Eusebius is supposed to have committed, some adequate ground must have existed. But what ground was there? The only motive suggested is that he desired to appear to possess specific knowledge about the manner of Justin's death, when in fact he did not possess it. It is not maintained that he had any larger motive, such as reconciling apparent contradictions in sacred records, or shedding an added luster upon the Christian religion, for neither of these purposes has any relation to the statement in regard to Crescens' connection with Justin's death. Solely then for the sake of producing the impression that he knew more about Justin's death than he did, he must have made the change. But certainly when we realize how frequently Eusebius directly avows his ignorance on paints far more important (to his mind) than this (e.g., the dates of the Jerusalem bishops, which he might so easily have invented), and when we consider how sober his history is in comparison with the accounts of the majority of his contemporaries, both Pagan and Christian, how few fables he introduces, how seldom he embellishes the narratives which he finds related in his sources with imaginary figments of his own brain,-when, in fact, no such instances can be found elsewhere, although, writing in the age he did, and for the public for whom he did, he might have invented so many stories without fear of detection, as his successors during the ancient and middle ages were seldom loath to do,-when all this is taken into consideration, we should hesitate long before we accuse Eusebius of such deceptive conduct as is implied in the intentional alteration of Tatian's account at this point. It has been quite the custom to accuse Eusebius of intentional deviations from the truth here and there but it must be remembered that he was either honest or dishonest, and if he ever deliberately and intentionally deviated from the truth, his general character for truthfulness is gone, unless the deviation were only in some exceptional case, where the pressure to misrepresentation was unusually strong, under which circumstances his reputation for veracity in general might not be seriously impaired. But the present instance is not such an one, and if he was false here on so little provocation, why should we think his character such as to guarantee truthfulness in any place where falsehood might be more desirable?
The fact is, however, that the grounds upon which the accusation against Eusebius is based are very slender. Nothing but the strongest evidence should lead us to conclude that such a writer as he practiced such wilful deception for reasons absolutely trivial. But when we realize how little is known of the actual state of the text of Tatian's Oratio at the time Eusebius wrote, we must acknowledge that to base an accusation on a difference between the text of the History and the extant mss. of the Oratio is at least a little hasty. An examination of the latest critical edition of Tatian's Oratio (that of Schwartz, in Gebhardt, and Harnack's Texte und Untersuch. IV. 1) shows us that in a number of instances the testimony of the mss. of Eusebius is accepted over against that of the few extant mss. of Tatian. The ms. of Tatian which Eusebius used was therefore admittedly different at a number of points from all our existing mss. of Tatian. It is consequently not at all impossible that the ms. which he used read mrgalw instead of kai eme wj. It happens, indeed, to be a fact that our three mss. of Tatian all present variations at this very point (one reads kai eme wj, another, kai eme oion, another, kai eme ouj), showing that the archetype, whatever it was, either offered difficulties to the copyists, or else was partially illegible, and hence required conjectural emendations or additions. It will be noticed that the closing verb of this sentence is in the singular, so that the mention of both Justin and Tatian in the beginning of the sentence may well have seemed to some copyist quite incongruous, and it is not difficult to suppose that under such circumstances, the text at this point being in any case obscure or mutilated, such a copyist permitted himself to make an alteration which was very clever and at the same time did away with all the trouble. Textual critics will certainly find no difficulty in such an assumption. The mss. of Tatian are undoubtedly nearer the original form at this point than those of Eusebius, but we have no good gounds for supposing that Eusebius did not follow the ms. which lay before him.
The question as to Eusebius' interpretation of the passage as he found it is quite a different one. It contains no direct statement Justin met his death in consequence of the plots of Crescens; and finding no mention of such a fact in the Acts of Martyrdom of Justin, we may dismiss it as unhistorical and refuse to accept Eusebius' interpretation of Tatian's words. To say, however, that Eusebius intentionally misinterpreted those words is quite unwarranted. He found in Justin's, work an expressed expectation that he would meet his death in this way, and he found in Tatian's work the direct statement that Crescens did plot Justin's death as the latter had predicted he would. There was nothing more natural than to conclude that Tatian meant to imply that Crescens had succeeded, for why did he otherwise mention the matter at all, Eusebius might well say, looking at the matter from his point of view, as an historian interested at that moment in the fact of Justin's death. He does undoubtedly show carelessness and lack of penetration in interpreting the passage as be does; but if he had been aware of the defect in the evidence he presents, and had yet wished deceitfully to assert the fact as a fact, he would certainly have omitted the passage altogether, or he would have bolstered it up with the statement that other writers confirmed his conclusion,-a statement which only a thoroughly and genuinely honest man would have scrupled to make. Finally, to return to the original charge of falsification of the sources, he realized that the text of Tatian, with the kai eme wj, did not establish Justin's death at the instigation of Crescens, he must have realized at the same time that his altered text, while it might imply it, certainly did not absolutely prove it, and hence he would not have left his conclusion, which he stated as a demonstrated fact, to rest upon so slender a basis, when he might so easily have adduced any number of oral traditions in confirmation of it. If he were dishonest enough to alter the text, he would not have hesitated to state in general terms that the fact is "also supported by tradition." We conclude, finally, that he read the passage as we how find it in the mss. of his History, and that his interpretation of the passage, while false, was not intentionally so.
The attacks upon Eusebius which have been already referred to are to be found in Dembowski's Quellen der christlichen Apologetik, I. p. 60; Zahn's Tatian's Diatessaron, p. 275 sq., and Harnack's Ueberlieferung der griech. Apologeten, p. 141 sq. Semisch (Justin der Märtyrer, I. 53) takes for granted that Eusebius followed the text of Tatian which lay before him, but does not attempt to prove it.
106 Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos, c. 18. It is quite probable that Tatian is here appealing, not to a written work of Justin's, but to a statement which he had himself heard him make. See Harnack's Ueberlieferung der griech. Apologeten, p. 130. Harnack is undoubtedly correct in maintaining that Tatian's Oratio is quite independent of Justin's Apology and other writings.
107 Ibid. chap. 19.
108 Eusebius in this chapter quotes what we now know as Justin's, second Apology, calling it his first. It is plain that the two were but one to him. See chap. 18, note 3.
109 Justin, Apol. II. 2.
110 Our authorities are divided between hmin and umin, but I have followed Heinichen in adopting the former, which has much stronger ms. support, and which is in itself at least as natural as the latter.
111 Of this Ptolemaeus we know only what is told us here. Tillemont, Ruinart, and others have fixed the date of his martyrdom as 166, or thereabouts. But inasmuch as the second Apology is now commonly regarded as an appendix to, or as a part of, the first, and was at any rate written during the reign of Antoninus Pius, the martyrdom of Ptolemaeus must have taken place considerably earlier than the date indicated, in fact in all probability as early as 152 (at about which time the Apology was probably written). We learn from the opening of the second Apology that the martyrdoms which are recorded in the second chapter, and the account of which Eusebius here quotes, happened very shortly before the composition of the Apology (xqez de kai prwhn, "yesterday and the day before").
112 'Ourbikioj, as all the mss. of Eusebius give the name. In Justin the form 'Ourbikoj occurs, which is a direct transcription of the Latin Urbicus.
113 Of this Lucius we know only what is told us here.
114 Marcus Aurelius. See above, chap. 12, note 2.
115 In chap. 16, §3.
116 Justin, Apol. II. 3. These words, in Justin's Apology, follow immediately the long accotrot quoted just above.
117 Eusebius apparently cites here only the works which he had himself seen, which accounts for his omission of the work against Marcion mentioned above, in chap. 11.
118 This Apology is the genuine work of Justin, and is still extant in two late and very faulty mss., in which it is divided into two, and the parts are commonly known as Justin's First and Second Apologies, though they were originally one. The best edition of the original is that of Otto in his Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum; English translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I. p. 163 ff. Eusebius, in his Chronicle, places the date of its composition as 141, but most critics are now agreed in putting it ten or more years later; it must, however, have been written before the death of Antoninus Pius (161). See Schaff, Ch. Hist. II. p. 716.
119 Eusebius here, as in chap. 16 above, ascribes to Justin a second Apology, from which, however, he nowhere quotes. From Eusebius the tradition has come down through history that Justin wrote two apologies, and the tradition seems to be confirmed by the existing mss. of Justin, which give two. But Eusebius' two cannot have corresponded to the present two; for, from chap. 8, §§16 and 17, it is plain that to Eusebius our two formed one complete work. And it is plain, too, from internal evidence (as is now very generally admitted; Wieseler's arguments against this, in his Christenverfolgungen, p. 104 ff., are not sound), that the two were originally one, our second forming simply a supplement to the first. What, then, has become of the second Apology mentioned by Eusebius? There is much difference of opinion upon this point. But the explanation given by Harnack (p. 171 ff.) seems the most probable one. According to his theory, the Apology of Athenagoras (of whom none of the Fathers, except Methodius and Philip of Side, seem to have had any knowledge) was attributed to Justin by a copyist of the third century,-who altered the address so as to throw it into Justin's time,-and as such it came into the hands of Eusebius, who mentions it among the works of Justin. That he does not quote from it may be due to the fact that it contained nothing suited to his purpose, or it is possible that he had some suspicions about it; the last, however, is not probable, as he nowhere hints at them. That some uncertainty, however, seemed to hang about the work is evident. The erasure of the name of Athenagores and the substitution of Justin's name accounts for the almost total disappearance of the former from history. This Apology and his treatise on the resurrection first appear again under his name in the eleventh century, and exist now in seventeen mss. (see Schaff, II. 731). The traditional second Apology of Justin having thus after the eleventh century disappeared, his one genuine Apology was divided by later copyists, so that we still have apparently two separate apologies.
120 This and the following were possibly genuine works of Justin; but, as they are no longer extant, it is impossible to speak with certainty. The two extant works, Discourse to the Greeks (Oratio ad Graecos) and Hortatory Address to the Greeks (Cohortatio ad Graecos), which are translated in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, I. p. 271-289, are to be regarded as the productions of later writers, and are not to be identified with the two mentioned here (although Otto defends them both, and Semisch defends the latter).
121 We have no reason to think that this work was not genuine, but it is no longer extant, and therefore certainty in the matter is impossible. It is not to be identified with the extant work upon the same subject (translated in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, I. p. 290-293), which is the production of a later writer.
122 This work and the following have entirely disappeared, but were genuine productions of Justin, for all that we know to the contrary.
123 This is a genuine work of Justin, and is still extant (translated in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, I. p. 194-270). Its exact date is uncertain, but it was written after the Apology (to which it refers in chap. 120), and during the reign of Antoninus Pius (137-161).
Of Trypho, whom Eusebius characterizes as "a most distinguished man among the Hebrews," we know nothing beyond what we can gather from the dialogue itself.
124 See Dial. chap. 2 sq.
125 ibid. chap. 17.
126 ibid. chap. 82.
127 ibid. chap. 81.
128 ibid. chap. 71.
129 Of the many extant and non-extant works attributed to Justin by tradition, all, or the most of them (except the seven mentioned by Eusebius, and the work Against Marcion, quoted by Irenaeus,-see just below,-and the Syntagma Contra omnes Haer.), are the productions of later writers.