Symeon, Bishop of Jerusalem, suffers Martyrdom

202 BOOK III CHAPTER XXXII Symeon, Bishop of Jerusalem, suffers Martyrdom. in Judea with their father, and were honored with the gift of prophecy. His words are as follows: “We came unto Cæsarea; and entering into the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, we abode with him. Now this man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy.”841

6. We have thus set forth in these pages what has come to our knowledge concerning the apostles themselves and the apostolic age, and concerning the sacred writings which they have left us, as well as concerning those which are disputed, but nevertheless have been publicly used by many in a great number of churches,842 and moreover, concerning those that are altogether rejected and are out of harmony with apostolic orthodoxy. Having done this, let us now proceed with our history.

CHAPTER XXXII. Symeon, Bishop of Jerusalem, suffers Martyrdom.

1. It is reported that after the age of Nero and Domitian, under the emperor whose times we are now recording,843 a persecution was stirred up against us in certain cities in consequence of a popular uprising.844 In this persecution we have understood that Symeon, the son of Clopas, who, as we have shown, was the second bishop of the church of Jerusalem,845 suffered martyrdom.

2. Hegesippus, whose words we have already quoted in various places,846 is a witness to this fact also. Speaking of certain heretics847 he adds that Symeon was accused by them at this time; and since it was clear that he was a Christian, he was tortured in various ways for many days, and astonished even the judge himself and his attendants in the highest degree, and finally he suffered a death similar to that of our Lord.848

3. But there is nothing like hearing the historian himself, who writes as follows: “Certain of these heretics brought accusation against Symeon, the son of Clopas, on the ground that he was a descendant of David849 and a Christian; and thus he suffered martyrdom, at the age of one hundred and twenty years,850 while Trajan was em-

841Acts xxi. 8, 9. Eusebius clearly enough considers Philip the apostle and Philip the evangelist identical. Upon this identification, see note 6, above. 842 ἱερῶν γραμμ€των, καὶ τῶν ἀντιλεγομένων μὲν, ὅμως…δεδημοσιευμένων. The classification here is not inconsistent with that given in chap. 25, but is less complete than it, inasmuch as here Eusebius draws no distinction between ἀντιλεγόμενα and νόθοι, but uses the former word in its general sense, and includes under it both the particular classes (Antilegomena and νόθοι) of chap. 25 (see note 27 on that chapter). 843Trajan, who reigned from 98 to 117 a.d. 844Upon the state of the Christians under Trajan, see the next chapter, with the notes. 845 See chap. 11. 846 Quoted in Bk. II. chap. 23, and in Bk. III. chap. 20, and mentioned in Bk. III. chap. 11. Upon his life and writings, see Bk. IV. chap. 8, note 1. 847 In the passage quoted in Bk. IV. chap. 22, §4, Hegesippus speaks of various heretics, and it looks as if the passage quoted there directly preceded the present one in the work of Hegesippus. 848That is, by crucifixion, as stated in §6. 849 It is noticeable that Symeon was not sought out by the imperial authorities, but was accused to them as a descendant of David and as a Christian. The former accusation shows with what suspicion all members of the Jewish royal family were still viewed, as possible instigators of a revolution (cf. chap. 20, note 2); the latter shows that in the eyes of the State Christianity was in itself a crime (see the next chapter, note 6). In the next paragraph it is stated that search was made by the officials for members of the Jewish royal family. This was quite natural, after the attention of the government had been officially drawn to the family by the arrest of Symeon. 850The date of the martyrdom of Symeon is quite uncertain. It has been commonly ascribed (together with the martyrdom of Ignatius) to the year 106 or 107, upon the authority of Eusebius’ Chron., which is supposed to connect these events with the ninth or tenth year of Trajan’s reign. But an examination of the passage in the Chron., where Eusebius groups together these two events and the persecutions in Bithynia, shows that he did not pretend to know the exact date of any of them, and simply put them together as three similar events known to have occurred during the reign of Trajan (cf. Lightfoot’s Ignatius,

4. And the same writer says that his accusers also, when search was made for the descendants of David, were arrested as belonging to that family.852 And it might be reasonably assumed that Symeon was one of those that saw and heard the Lord,853 judging from the length of his life, and from the fact that the Gospel makes mention of Mary, the wife of Clopas,854 who was the father of Symeon, as has been already shown.855

5. The same historian says that there were also others, descended from one of the so-called brothers of the Saviour, whose name was Judas, who, after they had borne testimony before Domitian, as has been already recorded,883 in behalf of faith in Christ, lived until the same reign.

6. He writes as follows: “They came, therefore, and took the lead of every church856 as witnesses857 and as relatives of the Lord. And profound peace being established in every church, they remained until the reign of the Emperor Trajan,858 and until the above-mentioned Symeon, son of Clopas, an uncle of the Lord, was informed against

II. p. 447 sqq.). The year of Atticus’ proconsulship we unfortunately do not know, although Wieseler, in his Christen-Verfolgungen der Cæsaren, p. 126, cites Waddington as his authority for the statement that Herodes Atticus was proconsul of Palestine from 105 to 107; but all that Waddington says (Fastes des prov. Asiat., p. 720) is, that since the proconsul for the years 105 to 107 is not known, and Eusebius puts the death of Symeon in the ninth or tenth year of Trajan, we may assume that this was the date of Atticus’ proconsulship. This, of course, furnishes no support for the common opinion. Lightfoot, on account of the fact that Symeon was the son of Clopas, wishes to put the martyrdom earlier in Trajan’s reign, and it is probable that it occurred earlier rather than later; more cannot be said. The great age of Symeon and his martyrdom under Trajan are too well authenticated to admit of doubt; at the same time, the figure 120 may well be an exaggeration, as Lightfoot thinks. Renan (Les Evangiles, p. 466) considers it very improbable that Symeon could have had so long a life and episcopate, and therefore invents a second Symeon, a great-grandson of Clopas, as fourth bishop of Jerusalem, and makes him the martyr mentioned here. But there is nothing improbable in the survival of a contemporary of Jesus to the time of Trajan, and there is no warrant for rejecting the tradition, which is unanimous in calling Symeon the son of Clopas, and also in emphasizing his great age. 851 ἐπὶ Τραϊανοῦ καίσαρος καὶ ὑπατικοῦ ᾽Αττικοῦ. The nouns being without the article, the phrase is to be translated, “while Trajan was emperor, and Atticus governor.” In §6, below, where the article is used, we must translate, “before Atticus the governor” (see Lightfoot’s Ignatius, I. p. 59). The word ὑπατικός is an adjective signifying “consular, pertaining to a consul.” It “came to be used in the second century especially of provincial governors who had held the consulship, and at a later date of such governors even though they might not have been consuls” (Lightfoot, p. 59, who refers to Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, I. 409). 852This is a peculiar statement. Members of the house of David would hardly have ventured to accuse Symeon on the ground that he belonged to that house. The statement is, however, quite indefinite. We are not told what happened to these accusers, nor indeed that they really were of David’s line, although the ὡσ€ν with which Eusebius introduces the charge does not imply any doubt in his own mind, as Lightfoot quite rightly remarks. It is possible that some who were of the line of David may have accused Symeon, not of being a member of that family, but only of being a Christian, and that the report of the occurrence may have become afterward confused. 853This is certainly a reasonable supposition, and the unanimous election of Symeon as successor of James at a time when there must have been many living who had seen the Lord, confirms the conclusion. 854Mary, the wife of Clopas, is mentioned in John xix. 25. 855See above, chap. 11. 856 See p. 389, note. 857μ€ρτυρες. The word is evidently used here in its earlier sense of “witnesses,” referring to those who testified to Christ even if they did not seal their testimony with death. This was the original use of the word, and continued very common during the first two centuries, after which it became the technical term for persons actually martyred and was confined to them, while ὁμολογητής, “confessor,” gradually came into use as the technical term for those who had borne testimony in the midst of persecution, but had not suffered death. As early as the first century (cf. Acts xxii. 20 and Rev. ii. 13) μ€ρτυς was used of martyrs, but not as distinguishing them from other witnesses to the truth. See the remarks of Lightfoot, in his edition of Clement of Rome, p. 46. 858This part of the quotation has already been given in Eusebius’ own words in chap. 20, §8. See note 5 on that chapter.