BOOK III.
PART I.
CHAPTERS I THROUGH VI.
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
THE PARTS OF THE WORLD IN WHICH THE APOSTLES PREACHED CHRIST.
Such was the condition of the Jews.
Meanwhile the holy apostles and disciples of our Savior were dispersed throughout
the world.
Parthia, according to tradition, was allotted to Thomas as his field of
labor, Scythia to Andrew, and Asia to John, who, after he had lived some time
there, died at Ephesus.
Peter appears to have preached in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia,
and Asia to the Jews of the dispersion.
And at last, having come to Rome, he was crucified head downwards,
for he had requested that he might suffer in this way.
What do we need to say concerning Paul, who preached the gospel of Christ from
Jerusalem to Illyricum and afterwards suffered martyrdom in Rome under Nero?
These facts are related by origin in the third volume of his commentary on Genesis.
CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST RULER OF THE CHURCH OF ROME.
After the martyrdom of Paul and of Peter, Linus was the first to obtain the
episcopate of the church at Rome.
Paul mentions him when writing to Timothy from Rome in the salutation at the end of
the epistle.
CHAPTER III.
THE EPISTLES OF THE APOSTLES.
One epistle of Peter, that called the first, is acknowledged as genuine.
And this the ancient elders used freely in their own writings as an undisputed work.
But we have learned that his extant second epistle does not belong to the canon,
yet, as it has appeared profitable to many, it has been used with the other
scriptures.
The so-called acts of Peter, however, and the gospel which bears his name,
and the preaching and the apocalypse as they are called, we know have not been
universally accepted, because no ecclesiastical writer, ancient or modern,
has made use of testimonies drawn from them.
But in the course of my history I shall be careful to show, in addition to the
official succession, what ecclesiastical writers have from time to time made use of
any of the disputed works, and what they have said in regard to the canonical and
accepted writings, as well as in regard to those which are not of this class.
Such are the writings that bear the name of Peter, only one of which I know to be
genuine and acknowledged by the ancient elders.
Paul's fourteen epistles are well known and undisputed.
It is not indeed right to overlook the fact that some have rejected the epistle
to the Hebrews, saying that it is disputed by the Church of Rome, on the ground that
it was not written by Paul.
But what has been said concerning this epistle by those who lived before our
time, I shall quote in the proper place.
In regard to the so-called acts of Paul, I have not found them among the undisputed
writings.
But as the same apostle, in the salutations at the end of the epistle to
the Romans, has made mention among others of Hermas, to whom the book called the
Shepherd is ascribed, it should be observed that this too has been disputed
by some, and on their account cannot be placed among the acknowledged books.
While by others it is considered quite indispensable, especially to those who
need instruction in the elements of the faith.
Hence, as we know, it has been publicly read in churches, and I have found that
some of the most ancient writers used it.
This will serve to show the divine writings that are undisputed, as well as
those that are not universally acknowledged.
Chapter 4, The First Successors of the Apostles That Paul preached to the
Gentiles and laid the foundations of the churches from Jerusalem round about even
unto Illyricum, is evident both from his own words and from the account which Luke
has given in the Acts.
And in how many provinces Peter preached Christ and taught the doctrine of the new
covenant to those of the circumcision, is clear from his own words in his epistle
already mentioned as undisputed, in which he writes to the Hebrews of the
dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.
But the number and the names of those among them that became true and zealous
followers of the Apostles, and were judged worthy to tend the churches founded by
them, it is not easy to tell, except those mentioned in the writings of Paul.
For he had innumerable fellow laborers, or fellow soldiers, as he called them,
and most of them were honored by him with an imperishable memorial, for he gave
enduring testimony concerning them in his own epistles.
Luke also in the Acts speaks of his friends and mentions them by name.
Timothy, so it is recorded, was the first to receive the episcopate of the parish in
Ephesus, Titus of the churches in Crete.
But Luke, who was of Antiochian parentage and a physician by profession,
and who was especially intimate with Paul and well acquainted with the rest of the
has left us in two inspired books, proofs of that spiritual healing art which
he learned from them.
One of these books is the Gospel, which he testifies that he wrote as those
who were from the beginning eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered unto
him, all of whom, as he says, he followed accurately from the first.
The other book is the Acts of the Apostles, which he composed not from the
accounts of others, but from what he had seen himself.
And they say that Paul meant to refer to Luke's gospel wherever, as if speaking of
some gospel of his own, he used the words, according to my gospel.
As to the rest of his followers, Paul testifies that Crestians was sent to
Gaul, but Linus, whom he mentions in the second epistle to Timothy as his companion
at Rome, was Peter's successor in the episcopate of the church there,
as has already been shown.
Clement also, who was appointed third bishop of the church at Rome, was,
as Paul testifies, his co-laborer and fellow soldier.
Besides these, that Areopagite named Dionysius, who was the first to believe
after Paul's address to the Athenians in the Areopagus, as recorded by Luke in the
Acts, is mentioned by another Dionysius, an ancient writer and pastor of the parish
in Corinth, as the first bishop of the church at Athens.
But the events connected with the apostolic succession we shall relate at
the proper time.
Meanwhile, let us continue the course of our history.
Chapter 5.
The Last Siege of the Jews After Christ.
After Nero had held the power 13 years, and Galba and Otho had ruled a year and
six months, Vespasian, who had become distinguished in the campaign against the
Jews, was proclaimed sovereign in Judea and received the title of emperor from the
armies there.
Setting out immediately, therefore, for Rome, he entrusted the conduct of the
war against the Jews to his son Titus.
For the Jews, after the ascension of our Savior, in addition to their crime against
him, had been devising as many plots as they could against his apostles.
First Stephen was stoned to death by them, and after him James, the son of Zebedee
and the brother of John, was beheaded.
And finally James, the first that had obtained the episcopal seat in Jerusalem
after the ascension of our Savior, died in the manner already described.
But the rest of the apostles, who had been incessantly plotted against with a view to
their destruction and had been driven out of the land of Judea, went unto all
nations to preach the gospel, relying upon the power of Christ, who had said to them,
Go ye and make disciples of all the nations in my name.
But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation,
vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in
a certain town of Perea called Pella.
And when those that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem, then,
as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely
destitute of holy men, the judgment of God at length overtook those who had committed
such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that
generation of impious men.
But the number of calamities which everywhere fell upon the nation at that
time, the extreme misfortunes to which the inhabitants of Judea were especially
subjected, the thousands of men, as well as women and children,
that perished by the sword, by famine, and by other forms of death innumerable,
all these things, as well as the many great sieges which were carried on against
the cities of Judea, and the excessive sufferings endured by those that fled to
Jerusalem itself as to a city of perfect safety, and finally the general course of
the whole war, as well as its particular occurrences in detail, and how at last the
abomination of desolation proclaimed by the prophets stood in the very temple of
God so celebrated of old, the temple which was now awaiting its total and final
destruction by fire, all these things anyone that wishes may find accurately
described in the history written by Josephus.
But it is necessary to state that this writer records that the multitude of those
who were assembled from all Judea at the time of the Passover, to the number of
three million souls, were shut up in Jerusalem as in a prison, to use his own
words.
For it was right that in the very days in which they had inflicted suffering upon
the Saviour and the benefactor of all, the Christ of God, that in those days,
shut up as in a prison, they should meet with destruction at the hands of divine
justice.
But passing by the particular calamities which they suffered from the attempts made
upon them by the sword and by other means, I think it necessary to relate only the
misfortunes which the famine caused, that those who read this work may have
some means of knowing that God was not long in executing vengeance upon them for
their wickedness against the Christ of God.
Chapter 6.
The Famine Which Oppressed Them Taking the fifth book of the history of Josephus
again in our hands, let us go through the tragedy of events which then occurred.
For the wealthy, he says, it was equally dangerous to remain.
For under pretense that they were going to desert, men were put to death for their
wealth.
The madness of the seditions increased with the famine and both the miseries were
inflamed more and more day by day.
Nowhere was food to be seen.
But bursting into the houses, men searched them thoroughly.
And whenever they found anything to eat, they tormented the owners on the ground
that they had denied that they had anything.
But if they found nothing, they tortured them on the ground that they had more
carefully concealed it.
The proof of their having or not having food was found in the bodies of the poor
wretches.
Those of them who were still in good condition, they assumed were well supplied
with food.
While those who were already wasted away, they passed by, for it seemed absurd to
slay those who were on the point of perishing for want.
Many indeed secretly sold their possessions for one measure of wheat if
they belonged to the wealthier class, of barley if they were poorer.
Then shutting themselves up in the innermost parts of their houses,
some ate the grain uncooked on account of their terrible want, while others baked it
according as necessity and fear dictated.
Nowhere were tables set.
But snatching the yet uncooked food from the fire, they tore it in pieces.
Wretched was the fare, and a lamentable spectacle it was to see the more powerful
secure an abundance while the weaker mourned.
Of all evils, indeed, famine is the worst, and it destroys nothing so effectively as
shame.
For that which under other circumstances is worthy of respect, in the midst of
famine, is despised.
Thus women snatched the food from the very mouths of their husbands and children,
from their fathers, and what was most pitiable of all, mothers from their babes.
And while their dearest ones were wasting away in their arms, they were not ashamed
to take away from them the last drops that supported life.
And even while they were eating thus, they did not remain undiscovered.
But everywhere the rioters appeared to rob them even of these portions of food.
For whenever they saw a house shut up, they regarded it as a sign that those
inside were taking food.
And immediately bursting open the doors, they rushed in and seized what they were
eating, almost forcing it out of their very throats.
Old men who clung to their food were beaten, and if the women concealed it in
their hands, their hair was torn for so doing.
There was pity neither for gray hairs nor for infants, but taking up the babes that
clung to their morsels of food, they dashed them to the ground.
But to those that anticipated their entrance and swallowed what they were
about to seize, they were still more cruel, just as if they had been wronged by
them.
And they devised the most terrible modes of torture to discover food, stopping up
the privy passages of the poor wretches with bitter herbs, and piercing their
seats with sharp rods.
And men suffered things horrible even to hear of, for the sake of compelling them
to confess to the possession of one loaf of bread, or in order that they might be
made to disclose a single drachma of barley which they had concealed.
But the tormentors themselves did not suffer hunger.
Their conduct might indeed have seemed less barbarous if they had been driven to
it by necessity, but they did it for the sake of exercising their madness and of
providing sustenance for themselves for days to come.
And when anyone crept out of the city by night as far as the outposts of the Romans
to collect wild herbs and grass, they went to meet him.
And when he thought he had already escaped the enemy, they seized what he had brought
with him, and even though oftentimes the man would entreat them, and calling upon
the most awful name of God, adjure them to give him a portion of what he had obtained
at the risk of his life, they would give him nothing back.
Indeed, it was fortunate if the one that was plundered was not also slain.
To this account, Josephus, after relating other things, adds the following.
The possibility of going out of the city being brought to an end, all hope of
safety for the Jews was cut off, and the famine increased and devoured the
people by houses and families, and the rooms were filled with dead women
and children, the lanes of the city with the corpses of old men.
Children and youths, swollen with the famine, wandered about the marketplaces
like shadows, and fell down wherever the death agony overtook them.
The sick were not strong enough to bury even their own relatives, and those who
had the strength hesitated because of the multitude of the dead and the uncertainty
as to their own fate.
Many indeed died while they were burying others, and many betook themselves to
their graves before death came upon them.
There was neither weeping nor lamentation under these misfortunes, but the famine
stifled the natural affections.
Those that were dying a lingering death looked with dry eyes upon those that had
gone to their rest before them.
Deep silence and death-laden night encircled the city.
But the robbers were more terrible than these miseries, for they broke open the
houses, which were now mere sepulchers, robbed the dead, and stripped the covering
from their bodies, and went away with a laugh.
They tried the points of their swords in the dead bodies, and some that were lying
on the ground still alive they thrust through in order to test their weapons.
But those that prayed that they would use their right hand and their sword upon
them, they contemptuously left to be destroyed by the famine.
Every one of these died with eyes fixed upon the temple, and they left the
seditious alive.
These at first gave orders that the dead should be buried out of the public
treasury, for they could not endure the stench.
But afterward, when they were not able to do this, they threw the bodies from the
walls into the trenches.
And as Titus went around and saw the trenches filled with the dead and the
thick blood oozing out of the putrid bodies, he groaned aloud, and raising his
hands, called God to witness that this was not his doing.
After speaking of some other things, Josephus proceeds as follows.
I cannot hesitate to declare what my feelings compel me to.
I suppose if the Romans had longer delayed in coming against these guilty wretches,
the city would have been swallowed up by a chasm, or overwhelmed with a flood,
or struck with such thunderbolts as destroyed Sodom.
For it had brought forth a generation of men much more godless than were those that
suffered such punishment.
By their madness, indeed, was the whole people brought to destruction.
And in the sixth book, he writes as follows.
Of those that perished by famine in the city, the number was countless,
and the miseries they underwent unspeakable.
For if so much as the shadow of food appeared in any house, there was war,
and the dearest friends engaged in hand-to-hand conflict with one another,
and snatched from each other the most wretched supports of life.
Nor would they believe that even the dying were without food, but the robbers would
search them while they were expiring, lest anyone should feign death while
concealing food in his bosom.
With mouths gaping for want of food, they stumbled and staggered along like mad
dogs, and beat the doors as if they were drunk, and in their impotence they would
rush into the same houses twice or thrice in one hour.
Necessity compelled them to eat anything they could find, and they gathered and
devoured things that were not fit even for the filthiest of irrational beasts.
Finally, they did not abstain even from their girdles and shoes, and they stripped
the hides off their shields and devoured them.
Some used even wisps of old hay for food, and others gathered stubble and sold the
smallest weight of it for four adikdrakme.
But why should I speak of the shamelessness which was displayed during
the famine toward inanimate things?
For I am going to relate a fact such as is recorded neither by Greeks nor barbarians,
horrible to relate, incredible to hear.
And indeed I should gladly have omitted this calamity, that I might not seem to
posterity to be a teller of fabulous tales, if I had not innumerable witnesses
to it in my own age.
And besides, I should render my country poor service, if I suppress the account of
the sufferings which she endured.
There was a certain woman named Mary that dwelt beyond Jordan, whose father was
Eleazar, of the village of Bathazor, which signifies the house of Hyssop.
She was distinguished for her family and her wealth, and had fled with the rest of
the multitude to Jerusalem, and was shut up there with them during the siege.
The tyrants had robbed her of the rest of the property which she had brought with
her into the city from Perea, and the remnants of her possessions and whatever
food was to be seen the guards rushed in daily and snatched away from her.
This made the woman terribly angry, and by her frequent reproaches and
imprecations she aroused the anger of the rapacious villains against herself.
But no one either through anger or pity would slay her, and she grew weary of
finding food for others to eat.
The search too was already become everywhere difficult, and the famine was
piercing her bowels and marrow, and resentment was raging more violently
than famine.
Taking therefore anger and necessity as her counselors, she proceeded to do a most
unnatural thing.
Seizing her child, a boy which was sucking at her breast, she said, O wretched child,
in war, in famine, in sedition, for what do I preserve thee?
Slaves among the Romans we shall be even if we are allowed to live by them.
But even slavery is anticipated by the famine, and the rioters are more cruel
than both.
Come, be food for me, a fury for these rioters, and a byword to the world,
for this is all that is wanting to complete the calamities of the Jews.
And when she had said this, she slew her son, and having roasted him, she ate one
half herself, and covering up the remainder, she kept it.
Very soon the rioters appeared on the scene, and smelling the nefarious odor,
they threatened to slay her immediately unless she should show them what she had
prepared.
She replied that she had saved an excellent portion for them, and with that
she uncovered the remains of the child.
They were immediately seized with horror and amazement, and stood transfixed at the
sight.
But she said, This is my own son, and the deed is mine.
Eat, for I too have eaten.
Be not more merciful than a woman, nor more compassionate than a mother.
But if you are too pious and shrink from my sacrifice, I have already eaten of it.
Let the rest also remain for me.
At these words the men went out trembling, in this one case being affrighted,
yet with difficulty did they yield that food to the mother.
Forthwith the whole city was filled with the awful crime, and as all pictured the
terrible deed before their own eyes, they trembled as if they had done it
themselves.
Those that were suffering from the famine now longed for death, and blessed were
they that had died before hearing and seeing miseries like these.
Such was the reward which the Jews received for their wickedness and impiety
against the Christ of God.
End of Book Three, Part One