Difference between revisions of "Harmony of the Gospel (Conservative Version) longer form Chapters 57-63"

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[[Harmony of the Gospel (Conservative Version)|Introduction (Main article)]]
 
[[Harmony of the Gospel (Conservative Version)|Introduction (Main article)]]
  
[[Harmony of the Gospel (Conservative Version)#Index|Index]]
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[[Harmony of the Gospel (Conservative Version) longer form|Index]]
  
 
== Fifty-seven: Judgment ==
 
== Fifty-seven: Judgment ==
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In the military realm, Nerva established veterans’ colonies in [[North Africa|Africa]], a practice that was continued by the emperor Trajan after him. Normal military privileges were continued and some auxiliary units assumed the epithet Nervia or Nerviana. Beyond these details, we have little information, and any military action that may have occurred while Nerva was emperor is known to be sketchy at best.  
 
In the military realm, Nerva established veterans’ colonies in [[North Africa|Africa]], a practice that was continued by the emperor Trajan after him. Normal military privileges were continued and some auxiliary units assumed the epithet Nervia or Nerviana. Beyond these details, we have little information, and any military action that may have occurred while Nerva was emperor is known to be sketchy at best.  
  
At this time Clement still ruled the Christian Assembly of Rome as head of the Roman Assembly, being also the third who followed after Peter and Paul in the list of Episcopes who held the Episcopate there in Rome''':''' Linus was the first, and after him came Anencletus as the second, and Clement was third, who now died in A.D. 97 and was succeeded by [[Pope Evaristus|'''Evaristus''']], who was the fourth to succeed to Peter. According to Eusebius, Clement the Episcopos of Rome had committed the Episcopal government of the Assembly of Rome to Evarestus, and departed this life after he had superintended the Teaching of the divine word nine years in all, which we understand to be A.D. mid-88 through into 97. Others indicate perhaps seven years, from A.D. 91 into 97. The [[fact]] of the succession of shepherds by name is historically certain, even if the years are not.
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At this time Clement still ruled the Christian '''Assembly of Rome''' as head of the Roman Assembly, being also the third who followed after Peter and Paul in the list of Episcopes who held the Episcopate there in Rome''':''' Linus was the first, and after him came Anencletus as the second, and Clement was third, who now died in A.D. 97 and was succeeded by [[Pope Evaristus|'''Evaristus''']], who was the fourth to succeed to Peter. According to Eusebius, Clement the Episcopos of Rome had committed the Episcopal government of the Assembly of Rome to Evarestus, and departed this life after he had superintended the Teaching of the divine word nine years in all, which we understand to be A.D. mid-88 through into 97. Others indicate perhaps seven years, from A.D. 91 into 97. The [[fact]] of the succession of shepherds by name is historically certain, even if the years are not.
  
 
On one January A.D. '''98''', as a reward for his service in administering the expansion of the aqueducts and helping put an end to abuses, Frontinus was named consul for the second time, and Nerva also made Trajan his consular colleague in 98, and Trajan shared the consulship with him—indeed, in order to secure the succession, Nerva in 98 took as his imperial colleague, Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, Trajan, his adopted son, governor of one of the German provinces, and associated him with himself in the government, the man who became emperor on Nerva’s death.  
 
On one January A.D. '''98''', as a reward for his service in administering the expansion of the aqueducts and helping put an end to abuses, Frontinus was named consul for the second time, and Nerva also made Trajan his consular colleague in 98, and Trajan shared the consulship with him—indeed, in order to secure the succession, Nerva in 98 took as his imperial colleague, Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, Trajan, his adopted son, governor of one of the German provinces, and associated him with himself in the government, the man who became emperor on Nerva’s death.  
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The same author, while recounting the events of that period, also records that the Assembly of '''the Lord''' up to that time had continued to be a pure and uncorrupted virgin; while if there were any who attempted to corrupt the sound norm of the doctrine of the saving Gospel, they lay skulking, up to then concealed in dark hiding places.  
 
The same author, while recounting the events of that period, also records that the Assembly of '''the Lord''' up to that time had continued to be a pure and uncorrupted virgin; while if there were any who attempted to corrupt the sound norm of the doctrine of the saving Gospel, they lay skulking, up to then concealed in dark hiding places.  
  
All of the Presbyters in Asia associated with John, '''the Lord'''’s disciple, testify that John Taught them the [[Truth]], for he remained with them to the time of Trajan, and the Assembly at Ephesus is a true witness of the apostolic tradition. Through him the Holy Spirit expounded the true meaning of the [[Logos]] of God, His Truth, Intelligence and Wisdom.  
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All of the Presbyters in Asia associated with John, '''the Lord'''’s disciple, testify that John Taught them the [[Truth]], for he remained with them to the time of Trajan, and the '''Assembly at Ephesus''' is a true witness of the apostolic tradition. Through him the Holy Spirit expounded the true meaning of the [[Logos]] of God, His Truth, Intelligence and Wisdom.  
  
 
[[Philo]], a Hellenized Jew who lived from 20 B.C. to A.D. 50, a Jewish [[philosopher]] and Teacher, had used the Greek philosophical term ''Logos'' to mean an intermediary divine being, or [[demiurge]]. Philo accepted the [[Plato]]nic concept of a distinction between imperfect matter, which is visible, and perfect Form, and therefore embraced the conclusion that intermediary beings were necessary to bridge the enormous gap between God and the material world; and he Taught that the Logos was the highest of these intermediary beings. In his writings Philo calls this intermediary “the first-born of God”; he also writes that “the Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated”. He asserts that the reality at the heart of Plato’s concept of the ''Theory of Forms'' is located within the Logos, but that the Logos also acted on behalf of God in the physical world. In particular, Philo identifies the Angel of '''the Lord''' in the [[Old Testament]] with the Logos; he also Taught that the Logos was God’s instrument in the creation of the universe. But his understanding was defective. Men were seeking God, groping in the darkness of intellect, in the hope that they might feel after him and perhaps even find him.  
 
[[Philo]], a Hellenized Jew who lived from 20 B.C. to A.D. 50, a Jewish [[philosopher]] and Teacher, had used the Greek philosophical term ''Logos'' to mean an intermediary divine being, or [[demiurge]]. Philo accepted the [[Plato]]nic concept of a distinction between imperfect matter, which is visible, and perfect Form, and therefore embraced the conclusion that intermediary beings were necessary to bridge the enormous gap between God and the material world; and he Taught that the Logos was the highest of these intermediary beings. In his writings Philo calls this intermediary “the first-born of God”; he also writes that “the Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated”. He asserts that the reality at the heart of Plato’s concept of the ''Theory of Forms'' is located within the Logos, but that the Logos also acted on behalf of God in the physical world. In particular, Philo identifies the Angel of '''the Lord''' in the [[Old Testament]] with the Logos; he also Taught that the Logos was God’s instrument in the creation of the universe. But his understanding was defective. Men were seeking God, groping in the darkness of intellect, in the hope that they might feel after him and perhaps even find him.  
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:“And all the Presbyters that associated with John the disciple of '''the Lord''' in Asia bear witness that John delivered it to them. For he remained among them unto the time of Trajan.”  
 
:“And all the Presbyters that associated with John the disciple of '''the Lord''' in Asia bear witness that John delivered it to them. For he remained among them unto the time of Trajan.”  
 
And in the third book of the same work he attests the same thing in the following words''':'''  
 
And in the third book of the same work he attests the same thing in the following words''':'''  
:“But the Assembly in Ephesus also, which was founded by Paul, and where John remained unto the time of Trajan, is a faithful witness of the apostolic tradition.”  
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:“But the '''Assembly in Ephesus''' also, which was founded by Paul, and where John remained unto the time of Trajan, is a faithful witness of the apostolic tradition.”  
  
 
'''[[Clement of Rome]]''', in his book entitled ''What Rich Man can be saved?'', likewise indicates the time.  
 
'''[[Clement of Rome]]''', in his book entitled ''What Rich Man can be saved?'', likewise indicates the time.  
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And as he was conveyed on the journey through Asia in 110 under a most rigid military custody, he strengthened and fortified the assemblies in the various cities where he briefly stayed by oral homilies and exhortations, and especially to caution them above all to be even more on their guard against the heresies that were even then sprouting and beginning to prevail. He exhorted them to '''hold fast to the tradition of the Apostles''' which they had been Taught, whether by word or by letter; and, moreover, for the sake of greater security to '''attest that tradition in writing''', to give it a fixed form.  
 
And as he was conveyed on the journey through Asia in 110 under a most rigid military custody, he strengthened and fortified the assemblies in the various cities where he briefly stayed by oral homilies and exhortations, and especially to caution them above all to be even more on their guard against the heresies that were even then sprouting and beginning to prevail. He exhorted them to '''hold fast to the tradition of the Apostles''' which they had been Taught, whether by word or by letter; and, moreover, for the sake of greater security to '''attest that tradition in writing''', to give it a fixed form.  
  
So when he came to Smyrna, where Polycarp was, he wrote an epistle, that one to the Christian Assembly at '''Ephesus''', in which he mentions their pastor '''Onesimus'''; and another to the Christian Assembly of '''Magnesia''', situated on the Mæander River, in which he makes mention again of '''Damas''' the Episcopos; and another also to the Christian Assembly of the Trallians at '''Tralles''', whose Episcopos, he states, was '''Polybius''' at that time.  
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So when he came to Smyrna, where Polycarp was, he wrote an epistle, that one to the Christian '''Assembly at Ephesus''', in which he mentions their pastor '''Onesimus'''; and another to the Christian Assembly of '''Magnesia''', situated on the Mæander River, in which he makes mention again of '''Damas''' the Episcopos; and another also to the Christian Assembly of the Trallians at '''Tralles''', whose Episcopos, he states, was '''Polybius''' at that time.  
  
 
With these must be included also his epistle to the Christian Assembly of '''Rome''', which contains an exhortation to them not to rob him of his earnest confident expectation by refusing to endure his martyrdom. In confirmation of what has been said it is proper to quote briefly from this epistle. It is worthwhile to also here include brief extracts as specimens.  
 
With these must be included also his epistle to the Christian Assembly of '''Rome''', which contains an exhortation to them not to rob him of his earnest confident expectation by refusing to endure his martyrdom. In confirmation of what has been said it is proper to quote briefly from this epistle. It is worthwhile to also here include brief extracts as specimens.  
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"'''Assembly of Alexandria...Assembly of Rome...Assembly of Jerusalem...Assembly of Antioch'''" <small>
 
"'''Assembly of Alexandria...Assembly of Rome...Assembly of Jerusalem...Assembly of Antioch'''" <small>
:Four of the ancient Patriarchates of the early Church. The Patriarchate of Ephesus is associated with the founding of the fifth Patriarchate, that of Constantinople.
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:Four of the five ancient Patriarchates of the early Church. The Patriarchate of '''Ephesus''' is associated with the founding of the fifth Patriarchate, that of '''Constantinople'''. These all claim descent in the line of [[Apostolic succession]] from the original apostles of the Lord in the first century of the divine establishment of the Church as faithful guardians of the Gospel of the Lord under the inspirational guidance of the Holy Spirit handing on the purity of divine message of the apostolic tradition of the Faith of the Lord unchanged to the present day and to the end of time, with the [[Great Commission|mission]] of making disciples for the Lord <br> ([https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28%3A19-20&version=KJV Matthew 28:19-20]; [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+14%3A15-17&version=KJV John 14:15-17]; [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+16%3A12-14&version=KJV 16:12-14]; [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+16%3A18-19&version=KJV Matthew 16:18-19]; [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Thessalonians+2%3A13-15&version=KJV 2&nbsp;Thessalonians 2:13-15]; [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+1%3A6-9&version=KJV Galatians 1:6-9]; [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+13%3A17&version=KJV Hebrews 13:17]; [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Titus+3%3A9-10&version=KJV Titus 3:9-10]; [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+John+2%3A18-19&version=KJV 2&nbsp;John 2:18-19] KJV).
:See article [http://ephesuspat.weebly.com/about.html
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:See article [http://ephesuspat.weebly.com/about.htm Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Ephesus and All Asiana (ephesuspat.weebly.com)]
:See also '''[[Pentarchy]]'''.
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:See also '''[[Pentarchy]]''', meaning literally "rule by five".
 
</small>
 
</small>
  
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<small>Ad Gloriam Dei, 31 January 2019—developed by Michael Paul Heart and the editors of Conservapedia.</small>
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<small>Ad Gloriam Dei, 31 January 2019—developed by Michael Paul Heart and the editors of Conservapedia.<br>[https://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Harmony_of_the_Gospel_(Conservative_Version)_longer_form_Chapters_57-63&oldid=1652605 Revised on the eve of the Solemnity of Pentecost, 30 May 2020, by Michael Paul Heart]</small>

Latest revision as of 09:07, May 31, 2020

Introduction (Main article)

Index

Fifty-seven: Judgment

Chapter 57 Historical texts

Now Titus went in the front of the army in a decent manner according to Roman form, and marched through Samaria to Gophna, a city formerly taken by his father, and then garrisoned by Roman soldiers: when he had lodged there one night, he marched on in the morning; and when he had gone a full day’s march, he pitched his camp at that valley which the Jews, in their own tongue, call “the Valley of Thorns,” near a certain village called Gabaothsaul, which means, “the Hill of Saul,” about three and three-quarter miles distant from Jerusalem. There he chose six hundred select horsemen, and went to take a view of the city, to observe its strength and how courageous the Jews would be when they saw him, and before they came to a direct battle, whether they would be terrified and submit; for he had been truthfully informed that the people who had fallen under the power of the rebels and the robbers greatly desired peace; but, being too weak to rise up against the rest, they did nothing.

Now, as long as he rode along the straight road which led to the city, no one came out of the gates; but when he diverted and left that road, and led the band of horsemen obliquely toward the tower Psephinus, an immense number of the Jews leaped suddenly out from the Women’s Towers through the gate opposite the monuments of queen Helena, and intercepted his cavalrymen; and kept those who still ran along the road from joining those who had come down from it. They intercepted Titus also, with a few others, and cut them off from the rest.

Now it was impossible for him to go forward, because all the places had ditches dug in them from the wall, to protect the surrounding gardens, and were full of gardens divided by walls, and many hedges; and to rejoin his own men, he saw was also impossible, because of the multitude of the enemy; and many of his men had no idea that Titus was in any danger, but supposed he was still among them. So he saw that he must courageously save himself, and turned his horse about, and shouted to those around him to follow, and he ran with violence into the midst of his enemies, to force his way through them to his own men. He had neither helmet, nor breastplate, for he went out not to fight, but to view the city, yet none of the arrows touched his body, as if all of them missed him on purpose, and only made a noise as they passed, without hurting him. He overthrew many of those who met him head on, and made his horse ride over them. The enemy made a great shout at the boldness of Titus, and exhorted one another to rush him. Yet those he marched against fled in great numbers; while those in the same danger with him kept close to him, though they were wounded on their backs and sides; for they each had only one expectation of escape, if they could assist Titus himself open a way, that he might not be surrounded by his enemies before he got away from them. Now, two of his men were killed: one, at a distance from him, the enemy surrounded, and slew with their arrows and his horse also; the other, they slew as he leaped down from his horse, and carried off his horse. But Titus escaped with the rest, and came safe to the camp. So this success of the Jews’ first attack elated them with a false expectation; and gave them courage for the future.

But now, as soon as the legion at Emmaus joined Caesar at night, he moved from there, when it was day, and came to a place called Scopus, the Prospect, where the city could already be seen, with a plain view of the great Temple. This place, on the border of the north quarter of the city, and slightly more than eight tenths of a mile distant from it, was a broad plain, and quite appropriately named Scopus. Here Titus ordered a camp to be fortified for two legions who were to be together; but ordered another camp a farther two hundred twenty yards distant behind them to be fortified for the Legio quinta Alaudae, the Fifth Legion Larks; for he thought that, by marching in the night, they might be tired, and might deserve to be thus protected from the enemy, and might therefore fortify themselves with less fear; and, as they were now beginning to build, the Legio decima Fretensis, the Tenth Legion of the Sea Straits, which came through Jericho, had already arrived at the place where a group of armed men lay in wait to guard that pass into the city, which had been taken before by Vespasian. These legions had orders to camp at a distance of two thirds of a mile from Jerusalem at the Mount of Olives, which lies near the city on the east side, and divided from it by a deep valley named Kidron.

Now, Eleazar, the son of Simon, appeared very angry at John’s insolent attempts every day against the people; for this man never stopped murdering; but the truth was that he could not bear to submit to a tyrant younger than himself who had set himself up after him. So desiring to gain the entire power and dominion for himself, he had revolted from John, and taken to his assistance Judas the son of Chelcias, and Simon the son of Ezron, who were among the men of greatest power; with him also was Hezekiah the son of Chobar, a person of eminence. Each of them was followed by a great many of the Zealots. Eleazar was he who had first separated the Zealots from the people, and made them retire into the Temple; they had seized the inner court of the Temple, the Court of the Priests, and laid their arms on the holy gates, and over the holy fronts of that court; and they were of good courage because they saw that they had plenty of provisions, for here there was a great abundance of goods consecrated for sacred use only, wine, oil, flour, grain, and first fruits, which they had no scruples about using and committing sacrilege; yet they were still afraid because of their own small number; and when they laid up their arms there, they did not move from that place. But while the three separate parties in the city were constantly dashing against each other, John had also committed sacrilege by using timbers donated by King Agrippa at great expense, and consecrated solely for building the Temple twenty-eight feet higher to honor God, beams admirable for their straightness and huge size, by cutting them up in preparation for building siege towers to oppose his adversaries in the Temple. But God himself demonstrated that his efforts would prove useless to him, by bringing the Romans on him before he had them erected.

The rebels with astonishment now saw the Romans pitching three separate camps; and this foreign war, now so violently and suddenly come upon them, stopped them; and they began to think of coming to an awkward kind of agreement; and when they had gotten together, they said, “What are we doing, and what do we mean, by allowing three fortified walls to be built to coop us in, so that we shall not be able to breathe freely—while the enemy is securely building a kind of city in opposition to us and while we sit still within our own walls, and have become only spectators of what they are doing, with our hands idle, and our armor set aside, as if they were going about something for our good and advantage?”

Then they exclaimed, “It seems we are only courageous against ourselves, while the Romans are likely to gain the city without bloodshed by our rebellion!

Thus they encouraged one another, and immediately took their armor and ran out on the Tenth Legion Fretensis east of the city on the Mount of Olives, and with a prodigious shout fell on the Romans with great eagerness as they were fortifying their camp and were caught in different parties performing their separate works, having largely laid aside their arms, thinking that the Jews would not have dared to make a sally on them, and that even had they been disposed to do so, they supposed that the rebellions of the Jews against each other would have distracted them. So the soldiers of the legion were unexpectedly put to confusion when some of them quickly abandoned their works and immediately moved off, while many ran to their arms but were overtaken and smitten and slain before they could turn back on the enemy.

The Jews grew still more and more in number, encouraged by the good success of those who first made the attack; and, as long as they had such good fortune, they seemed to themselves and to the enemy to be many more than they really were. This wild kind of confused fighting also at first put the Romans to making a desperate stand, who had been constantly used to fighting skillfully and in good order, maintaining their ranks, and obeying orders given; for this reason the Romans were caught unexpectedly, and were obliged to give way to the assaults made on them. Now when these Romans were overtaken, stood their ground, and turned back on the Jews, they put a stop to the onslaught, and sounded the pursuit; yet, through their own vehement pursuit of the Jews without any care for their own safety, they were wounded by them; and as still more and more Jews sallied out of the city, the Romans at length were thrown into confusion and put to flight, and ran away from their camp.

The entire legion would have been in danger, if Titus had not been informed and sent reinforcements immediately. Reproaching them for cowardice, he bought back those running away, and assaulted the Jews on their flank with the select troops who were with him, slaying a considerable number, and wounding more, and, putting them all to flight, made them run hastily away down into the valley; and suffering greatly on the downslope, after they got over it, the Jews turned and faced the Romans, having the valley between them, and there fought them; but, shortly after noon, Titus deployed the reinforcements he had sent, and those with the cohorts, to prevent more sallies by the Jews, and sent the rest of the legion back away from the city up out of the valley to the upper part of the mountain, the Mount of Olives, to fortify their camp, while he continued the fight. This movement of troops running back up the mountain seemed to the Jews to be a flight; and when the watchman on the wall gave a signal by shaking his garment, a fresh multitude of Jews came out with mighty violence, like the running of the most terrible wild beasts. And truthfully, none who opposed them could withstand their furious attacks; but, as if they had been shot out of an engine, they broke and shattered the enemies’ ranks, who fled, and ran away back to the mountain; except Titus himself, and a few others with him, halfway up the incline.

Now these, his Friends, despising the danger, and unwilling to leave their general, implored him to give way to these Jews who are so fond of dying, and not risk such dangers like a common soldier, by venturing to turn back on the enemy so suddenly; because he was general in the war, and lord of the habitable earth, on whose preservation the public affairs do all depend. Titus seemed not to hear, but opposing those Jews running on him he smote them on the face, and, when he had forced them back, he slew them, and fell on great numbers of them marching down the hill from the city, thrusting forward and throwing them back and up. They were so amazed at his courage and his strength, that in their flight they could not charge away from him straight back up toward the city, but withdrew from him on both sides, and crowded after those who were fleeing back up the hill westward toward the city to get out of the valley; but he fell on their flank, and put a stop to their fury.

In the meantime, disorder and terror again fell on those fortifying their camp at the top of the hill when they saw those below them running away up toward them, so much that the whole legion scattered, thinking the sallies of the Jews were invincible, and that Titus himself had fled; assuming that if he had stayed the rest would never have made such a run back up the mountain. Thus a kind of panic fear surrounded them, some scattering one way, and some another, before some of them saw their general in the very midst of a battle, and, greatly concerned for him, loudly alerted the entire legion to the danger he was in, feeling that they did worse than run away, by deserting Titus. So they used their utmost force against the Jews, and charging straight down the slope from the Mount of Olives, they drove them in heaps to the bottom of the valley. The Jews turned to fight them; but since they were retreating, the Romans were now above the Jews and had the ground advantage, and they drove them all down into the valley, and Titus also pressed those near him; and now, while he, and those who had been with him from the start, opposed the enemy, who now retreated back up into the city and barred the gates, and thus kept them from doing further mischief, he sent the legion back to fortify their camp, so that Titus himself twice delivered that entire legion when it was in jeopardy, and gave them opportunity to fortify their camp.

The war outside now ceased for a while, and with that, the rebellion within revived.

And now, with the approach of the setting of the sun on Thursday afternoon and evening, on the preparation of the eve of the Feast of Unleavened Bread which now had come, which is Passover—on ten April, the preparation of the eve of Friday eleven April A.D. 70, in the year A.M. 3830 of the Jewish Calendar, the fourteenth day after the first sighting of the new moon, Friday being always the day of preparation of the Sabbath—in the lunar month Xanthicus, which is Nisan, the day when it is believed the Jews were first freed from the Egyptians, with the approach of the setting of the sun in the afternoon of Thursday ten April from the ninth to the eleventh hour of the day, 3 P.M. to 5 P.M., on this day Eleazar and his party opened the gates of the court of the Temple, and admitted into it those of the people who desired to worship God.

Now when the siege started at Passover, on Thursday the eve of Friday, the eve of the very same day we observe as Good Friday, thousands who had flocked from all parts of Judea at the time of the Passover were now trapped inside the city. Eusebius says that it may be necessary to state, how Josephus records—in the very words of that writer—that the multitude of those people who at the time of the Passover thronged into Jerusalem, as if to a prison, about three hundred thousand who flocked from all parts of Judea at the time of the Passover, who had no love for Christ or for Christians, violators of the heart of the law of Moses and the prophets, who did not hear them, were shut up in Jerusalem as in a prison, and were forced to live in tents in Bezetha.

Now this vast multitude is indeed gathered from remote places, but the entire nation was now shut up by fate as in a prison in preparation for their punishment, and the Roman army encompassed the city when it was crowded with inhabitants. Josephus calculates ninety-seven thousand, in addition to eleven hundred thousand, which is one million one hundred thousand, and both numbers together yield a total sum of one million one hundred and ninety-seven thousand Jews in Jerusalem at the time of the Passover, on Thursday before sundown the eve of Friday that year, beginning the sixth day of the week, the day of preparation.

For it was indeed appropriate, just and right, and also a cause of weeping, that, in those very days in which they had inflicted sufferings on the Savior and benefactor of all men, Jesus, the Christ of God, the very days on which they willingly perpetrated the Savior’s passion, shut up as in a prison, destruction should overtake them, as an exhibition of the divine justice—that they should meet with destruction and be thus shut up as being inside a prison, and receive the destruction meted out at the hands of divine justice according to their words, “Let his blood be on us, and on our children!

And that this city could contain so many people in it is evident from the number of them taken two years before, in A.D. 68, under Cestius Gallus, who, desiring to inform Nero of the strength of the city, who was otherwise disposed to scornfully despise that nation, petitioned the high priests, if the thing were possible, to take the number of the whole multitude; which they did, to the number of three million.

If any one compares the words of our Savior with the accounts of Josephus concerning the whole war, one cannot fail to wonder, and admit that the foreknowledge and the prophecy of our Savior were truly divine. It is fitting to add the true prediction of our Savior in which he foretold these events:

“Woe unto those who are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day. For there shall be Great Tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”

These things took place in this manner in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, A.D. 70, in accordance with the prophecies of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who by divine power saw them beforehand as if they were already present, and wept and mourned according to the statement of the holy evangelists, who give the very words which he uttered. And let us also weep with him. For, when before his passion Jesus drew near to the descent of the Mount of Olives, and saw the city, he wept over it, saying,

“Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

And then, as if speaking concerning the people, he says,

“For there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, before the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”

And again:

“When you see Jerusalem encompassed with armies, then know that the desolation of it is near.”

Remember for what cause this came upon them, how he had said to them, in truth,

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, saying, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' Thus you witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all this will come upon this generation.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate.”

And he said to his disciples,

“Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.”

Recall also these words that he said,

“Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does the same abominable things that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, he shall die.”

Now, Eleazar and his party, who had seized the inner court of the Temple with a great many of the Zealots who followed them and laid their weapons on the holy gates and over the holy fronts of that inner court, opened the gates of the outer court of the Temple, and admitted into it those of the people who desired to worship God during the preparation of the Passover before the setting of the sun on Thursday ten April that year. But John of Gischala, using this festival as a cloak for his own treacherous purposes, armed with concealed weapons the least conspicuous members of his own party, most of whom were not purified, but unclean, and sent them with great zeal into the Temple to seize it; and once they were in, they threw off their outer garments, revealing their armor, thus causing a very great disorder and disturbance about the holy house; and while the people who had no part in the rebellion supposed the attack was against all without distinction, the Zealots thought it was against themselves only. So they quickly stopped guarding the gates, and leaped down from their battlements before they could be engaged in combat, and fled into the subterranean caverns of the Temple; while the people trembling at the altar and about the holy house were pressed together, and trampled, and beaten mercilessly with both wooden and iron weapons by these who were supposed to be fellow Jews. Those attackers having disputes with others slew many unresisting persons out of personal enmity and hatred, as if they opposed the rebels; and all who had formerly offended any of these plotters were identified and led away to be slaughtered; and then, after horribly brutalizing the innocent, they granted a truce to the guilty who returned from the caverns, letting them go. These followers of John also now seized this inner Temple and all the warlike engines there, and together with Eleazar’s Zealots they challenged Simon; and the Abomination of Desolation now stood in the Temple of God, as will now be shown. And thus that rebellion, which had been divided into three factions, was now two.

But Titus, intending to pitch his camp nearer to the city than Scopus, positioned opposite the Jews as many of his choice cavalry and infantry as he thought sufficient to prevent sallies from the city, while he ordered the whole army to level the distance to the wall. Its walls were high and a series of high towers sixty feet high dominated the position, but for the Romans there would be one advantage: there was no valley in front of them. It was the logical place to attack Jerusalem. So they threw down all the hedges and walls the inhabitants had made about their gardens and groves of trees, and cut down all the fruit trees between them and the wall of the city, and filled up all the hollow places and the chasms, the ravines, and demolished the rocky cliff faces, the precipices, with iron instruments; and thereby prepared the way and made all the place a level desolation from Scopus to Herod’s monument, which adjoined the Serpent’s Pool.

This was done in four days; and desiring to bring safely to the camp the baggage of the army with the rest of the multitude that followed him, he set the strongest part of his army opposite the wall on the north quarter of the city, against the western part of it, and made his army seven ranks deep, with the infantry in front and the horsemen behind, each of these in three ranks, while the single rank of archers stood in the midst between them, making seven ranks: the horsemen, the archers, and the infantry. And now, as sallies by the Jews were checked by so great a body of men, both the beasts that bore the burdens and belonged to the three legions, and the rest of the multitude, as they marched were secure. But Titus himself was only a quarter mile from the wall, four hundred and forty feet, at the part with the Corner, near the tower Psephinus, where the north circuit of the wall bent and extended itself toward the west; but the other part of the army fortified themselves at the tower Hippicus, and was also at the same distance, four hundred and forty feet, a quarter mile away from the city. However, the Legio decima Fretensis, the Tenth Legion remained in its place on the Mount of Olives, a distance of two thirds of a mile from Jerusalem.

Now the multitude of the rebels with Simon, son of Giora, were ten thousand, besides the Idumeans. Those ten thousand had fifty commanders, over whom Simon was supreme. The tower Phasaelus was now converted by them to a house, where Simon exercised his tyrannical authority. The Idumeans who paid him homage were five thousand, and had eight commanders.

John of Gischala, who had seized the Temple, had six thousand armed men, under twenty commanders; the Zealots also who had come to him and ceased their opposition were two thousand four hundred and had the same commander they had formerly, Eleazar, son of Simon, together with Simon the son of Arinus. These now under John, together with him opposed the tyrant Simon, son of Giora.

Now, while these two factions fought one against another, both sides continued to prey on the people; and those of the people who would not join them in their wicked practices, were plundered by both factions. Simon held the upper city, and the great wall as far as Kidron, and all of the old wall that bent from Siloam to the east, and went down to the palace of Monobazus, king of the Adiabeni, beyond Euphrates; he also held that fountain, Siloam, and the Acra, which was the lower city, and all that reached to the palace of queen Helena, the mother of Monobazus: but John held the Temple and the parts adjoining it for a great way, also Ophlas, and the Valley of Kidron; and when the areas between their possessions were burnt by them, a desolate space was left in which they might fight each other; for this internal rebellion did not cease even when the Romans were camped near their very walls. But although they had grown wiser at the first Roman onset, this lasted only a while; for they resumed their previous madness, separated, and fought against each other with all their strength, and did everything the besiegers could desire; for during the whole period of the entire siege they never suffered from the Romans anything that was worse than what they made each other suffer, nor was there any misery endured by the city resulting from these men’s actions that was new, but it was most of all unhappy just before it was overthrown.

Remember the words that the multitude of the Jews uttered, when they begged for the release of the robber and murderer, but begged that the Prince of Life should be taken out of their midst, “Not this man, but Barabbas. Give us Barabbas!”. Barabbas was a robber who had committed murder in rebellion at that time. And now they were dominated by these robbers and murderers, who despised repentance and mercy in rebellion.

While this was the condition of the city inside, Titus went round the city outside with some chosen horsemen, and looked for a proper place to batter the walls: for the place was inaccessible from the valleys, and on the other side the first wall appeared too strong to be shaken by the engines, but being in doubt as to where he could possibly make an attack on any side, he then thought the best assault position was at the monument of John Hyrcanus the high priest, where the first fortification was lower, and the second was not joined to it, the builders having neglected to build the wall strong where the new city was sparsely inhabited; here also was an easy passage to the third wall, through which he thought to take the upper city, and, through the tower of Antonia, the Temple itself.

But as he was going round about the city, Nicanor, one of his Friends, was wounded with an arrow on his left shoulder as he approached too near the wall with Josephus and attempted to discuss terms of peace with those on the wall; for he was known to them. But when Titus saw their vehement rejection of anyone who approached to negotiate their protection, he was provoked to press the siege. At the same time he gave his soldiers leave to fire the suburbs, and ordered timber brought to raise earthwork embankments against the city; and when he had separated his army into three parts to begin those works, he placed the archers and those who threw javelin-darts among the banks being raised; and he placed in front of them those engines that threw javelins, and arrows and stones, to prevent the enemy from sallying out against the works, and to hinder those on the wall from obstructing them. So the trees were cut down immediately, and the suburbs left nakedly exposed. But now while the whole army was earnestly engaged in carrying the timber to raise the embankments, the rebellious Jews were not idle; and it happened that while these were very busy opposing their enemies outside the city, the people of Jerusalem, who all the while had been plundered and murdered by them, were now encouraged, thinking they would have a respite, and that now, if the Romans got the victory, they would be avenged on the authors of their miseries.

However, John, fearing Simon, held back, even while his own men were eager to sally outside against their enemies. But Simon, in contrast, was not inactive, for he lay near the place of the siege; he brought his engines of war, and deployed them at intervals on the wall, both those they had previously taken from Cestius Gallus in the uprising, and those they had gotten after seizing the garrison in the tower of Antonia. But they were so unskilled that these engines were largely useless to them; but a few former deserters to the Romans, who afterward had returned from their ranks and joined themselves to the rebels, had been taught by the Romans how to use them, which they did, though awkwardly. So they hurled stones and arrows at those making the banks; they also ran out on them by companies, and fought with them.

Now those Romans at work covered themselves with hurdles spread over their embankments, and their engines opposed the Jews when they made their excursions. These engines, prepared for all the legions, were admirably constructed; but still more extraordinary ones belonged to the Legio decima Fretensis, the Tenth Legion: those that threw arrows, and those that threw stones, were more forcible and larger than the rest, with which they not only repelled the excursions of the Jews, but also drove away those on the walls. Now, the stones were the weight of a talent, seventy-five to eighty-five pounds, and were hurled a distance of about a quarter mile and farther. The blow could not be withstood, not only by those who first stood in the way, but by those who were beyond them for a great space. The Jews, at first, were alerted to the coming of the stone before it came, not only by its bright, white color, but also by the great noise it made when the engine was let go and the stone came flying from it; then the watchmen sitting on the towers shouted in their own country language, “THE SON COMES!: so those in its way stood off and threw themselves on the ground; and the stone fell down and did them no harm. But the Romans then managed to blacken the stone so it would not be so easily seen, and then aimed with success; and so they destroyed many with one blow. These dropped on them as hailstones from heaven, and the judgment of God like a plague. And now Jesus the son of Ananus, a plebeian and an husbandman, for seven years and five months had continued his melancholy cry, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” and his cry was loudest at the festivals, up to the very moment he saw his prediction fulfilled in earnest in the siege, when it ceased; for as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, “Woe, woe, to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!” and as he was uttering these very same predictions—and just as he added at the last, “Woe, woe, to myself also!”—there came a stone out of one of the engines and smote him, and killed him immediately; and he gave up the ghost. And the stones continued to drop on them. Yet, with all this distress from the stones, the Jews did not permit the Romans to quietly raise their banks, but shrewdly and boldly exerted themselves, and repelled them by night and day.

And now, on finishing the Roman works, the workmen measured the distance from the wall by lead and a line, which they threw to it from their embankments; for they could not otherwise measure it themselves, because the Jews would shoot at them; and when they found that the engines could reach the wall, they brought them there. Then Titus set his engines at proper distances, so near to the wall that the Jews might not be able to repel them, and gave orders to go to work; and when a deafening noise echoed round about from three locations and a sudden great noise of outcry was made by the citizens in the city, and no less a terror fell on the two factions of the rebels themselves, both of them, seeing the common danger they were in, managed to agree on defense.

So the warring factions inside cried out to each other that they were aiding their enemies, and instead, to lay aside their enmities, and unite against the Romans, in spite of the fact that God did not grant them lasting concord in their present situation. In agreement, Simon, by proclamation, gave leave to those who came out of the Temple, to go up on the wall; and John too gave them the same leave, though he could not believe Simon was in earnest. So both sides laid aside their hatred and their separate quarrels, and formed themselves into one body; they then ran round the walls, and, having a vast number of torches, threw them at the machines, and showered arrows constantly on those who pushed those machines which battered the wall; the bolder sort leaped out by troops on the hurdles covering the machines, and pulled them to pieces, and fell on those soldiers, and beat them, not so much by any skill, as by the boldness of their attacks. However, Titus himself sent reinforcements to those hardest beset by the enemy, placing horsemen and archers on all sides of the engines, who beat back those who shot stones or arrows from the towers, and then set the engines to work with greater force; yet the wall did not yield to these blows, except where the battering-ram of the Legio quinta decima Apollinaris, Apollo’s Fifteenth Legion moved the corner of a tower, while the wall itself remained intact and unharmed above it; nor could the fall of that part of the tower easily break down any part of the wall itself together with it.

And now the Jews paused in their sallies for a while. But when they saw the Romans dispersed at their works and in their separate camps, who thought the Jews had withdrawn for weariness and fear, they suddenly made a sally out through an unseen gate at the tower Hippicus, at the same time bringing fire to burn the works, and boldly went up to the Romans at the very fortifications themselves: and here the boldness of the Jews was too much for the discipline of the Romans. This fight about the machines was very hot, while the one side tried hard to set them on fire, and the other side to prevent it; both sides were shouting, and many in the forefront of battle were slain. However, the furious assaults of the Jews like madmen were now too much for the Romans; and the fire catching hold of the works, all those endangered works and the engines themselves would have been burned, had not many select soldiers from Alexandria stood against them to prevent it, with greater courage than they themselves supposed they had, outdoing in this fight those of greater reputation before them. Titus then took the stoutest of his cavalry and attacked the enemy, himself slaying twelve of those at the forefront of the Jews; then the rest of the multitude on seeing this, gave way, and he pursued them, driving them all into the city, and he saved the works from the fire.

By Titus’s orders a certain Jew taken alive was crucified before the wall, to see if the rest would be frightened, and relax their obstinacy. But after the Jews had retired, John, who was commander of the Idumeans—not John of Gischala, the tyrant and leader of the Zealots—this John, a man of great eminence, both for his actions and his conduct, who was commander of the Idumeans, was talking to a soldier of his acquaintance before the wall, when he was wounded by an arrow shot at him by an Arabian, and died immediately, leaving the greatest lamentation to the Jews, and sorrow to the rebels.

Now, Titus had ordered the erection of three towers over seventy feet high, so that, by setting men on them at every embankment, from there he might drive away those on the wall; but on the next night, about midnight, it happened that one of these towers fell down, making a very great noise, and fear fell on the army; and they, supposing the enemy was coming to attack, all ran to their arms. And with that, a very great disturbance and a tumult arose among the legions; and as nobody knew what had happened, and seeing no enemy appear, they were afraid of one another; and with great earnestness everyone demanded of his fellows the password of the watch, as though the Jews had invaded their camp. And now they were like people under a panic fear, before Titus was informed of what had happened, and ordered that all should be made aware of it; and only then, and with some difficulty, was the disturbance cleared up.

Now, these towers were very troublesome to the Jews; and it was not practicable to take them, nor to overturn them, they were so heavy, nor to set them on fire, because they were covered with plates of iron. So they retired out of the reach of the Roman arrows, and no longer tried to prevent the impact of the rams, which, by continually beating upon the wall, gradually prevailed against it; so that the wall was already giving way to the Nico, which means “Victor”, for that was the name the Jews themselves called the greatest of the Roman engines, because it conquered all things; and at last a breach was being opened in the wall. Now, the Jews had long grown weary of fighting and keeping guard; and being careless, a great many had grown lazy and retired that night to lodge at a distance inside the outer wall; and for other reasons they had also thought it was superfluous to guard the wall, two other fortifications still remaining inside: this delusion was a judgment from God. It was then that the Romans mounted the breach that Nico had made, and all the Jews guarding that wall quickly abandoned their posts and retreated to the second wall, and those Romans who had gotten over that wall opened the gates and received all the army inside like a flood. And thus the Romans got possession of this first wall, on Sunday four May A.D. 70, the fifteenth day of the siege, on the seventh day of the month Artemisius, which is Iyyar, when they demolished a great part of it, as well as the northern parts of the city, which had also formerly been demolished by Cestius.

And now Titus pitched his camp inside the city, but out of the reach of the Jews’ arrows, at that place called “the Camp of the Assyrians”, having seized all that lay as far as the Kidron. When he began his attacks on the second wall, the Jews divided themselves into several bodies, and courageously defended that wall; John and his faction from the tower of Antonia, and from the northern portico of the Temple, and they fought the Romans before the monument of King Alexander Jannaeus; Simon’s army also took for their share the spot of ground near John’s monument, and fortified it as far as that gate through which an aqueduct brought water in to the tower Hippicus. However, the Jews frequently made violent sallies in bodies together out of the gates, and there fought the Romans; and whenever they were pursued to the wall, they were beaten, lacking the skill of the Romans; but when they fought them from the walls, they were too hard for them; the Romans being encouraged by their power joined to their skill, the Jews by their boldness nourished by their fear and that hardiness natural to them under calamities; the Jews were also encouraged still by the expectation of deliverance, as were the Romans by expectations of subduing them in a short time. Neither side grew weary; but all day long there were attacks and fights on the wall, and constant sallies out in bodies, nor was there any sort of combat that was not then used. And the night itself did not part them; no, the night itself passed without sleep on both sides, and was more uneasy to them than the day; both sides lay in their armor during the nighttime, being ready at the first appearance of light to go to battle, when they began to fight in the morning, while the one feared the wall should be taken, and the other that the Jews should make sallies on their camps.

Now, among the rebel Jews their ambition was to risk the foremost dangers, and thus please their commanders. Above all, they had a great veneration and dread of Simon, regarded by every one under him to such a degree that, at his command they were very ready to kill themselves with their own hands.

What made the Romans so courageous, was their usual custom of conquering and being undefeated, their constant wars and continual combat exercises, and the grandeur of their dominion; and now their chief encouragement, Titus himself, everywhere present with them all; for it appeared a terrible thing to grow weary while Titus was there, who fought bravely as well as they did, and was himself an immediate eyewitness of those who behaved valiantly, and he who was to reward them also. At present it was an esteemed advantage for anyone’s valor to be known by Titus; and on this account many of them displayed a more eager willingness than strength to match it, and there were many who were ambitious to gain reputation.

And now the Jews were unconcerned by what they themselves suffered from the Romans, and cared only about what damage they could do them; and death itself seemed a small matter to them, if only at the same time they could kill any one of their enemies. But Titus took care to secure his own soldiers from harm, as well as to have them overcome their enemies. He also said that reckless violence was madness; and that the only true courage was that joined with good military conduct. He therefore commanded his men to take care, when they fought their enemies, that they received no harm from them at the same time, and they would show themselves to be truly valiant men.

And now Titus brought one of his engines to the middle tower of the north part of the wall, and because of his anger at the deceit and obstinacy of the Jews he caused the engine to be worked more strongly than before; and he took this second wall there on the fifth day after taking the first; and when the Jews had fled from him, he entered with a thousand armed men, and those of his choice troops, at a place where the wool merchants, the braziers, and the cloth market were, and where the angled narrow lanes indirectly led to the wall. And now, Titus did not immediately demolish a larger part of the wall, nor, on coming in, did he lay waste what was left according to the law of war.

When he came in, he did not permit his soldiers to kill any of those they caught, nor to set fire to their houses; for he greatly desired to preserve the city for his own sake, and the Temple for the sake of the city; and now, out of the expectation he had that he could make the Jews ashamed of their obstinacy by not being willing to afflict them more than he needed, when he was able to do so, he did not widen the breach of the second wall to make a safer retreat as occasion demanded; for he did not think they would lay snares for him who did them such a kindness; no, he immediately gave leave to the rebels, if they chose, to fight without any harm to the people in any area they might designate, away from the populace, and promised to restore the people’s effects to them.

Now the people for a long time had been ready to comply with his proposals; but to the rebel fighting men, this humanity seemed a mark of weakness; and they imagined he only made these proposals because he was not able to take the rest of the city. They also threatened death to the people, if any one of them should say a word about a surrender. Moreover, they immediately cut the throats of those who talked of a truce. And now, in answer, they instantly attacked those Romans who had come inside the wall. Some of them they met in the narrow streets, and some they fought against from their houses, while they made a sudden sally out at the upper gates, and assaulted any Romans found beyond the wall, so that those Romans who guarded the wall were finally so frightened, that they leaped down from their towers, and retreated into their separate camps: and a great shouting noise was made by the Romans inside, surrounded on every side by their enemies; and by those Romans outside, in fear for those left in the city. Thus the Jews grew increasingly more numerous, and had a great advantage over them, by their full knowledge of those narrow lanes; and they wounded a great many of them. These Romans were now forced to resist as best they could, as the Jews fell on them and drove them out of the city; for they were not able to get out in great numbers through the breach in the wall, it was so narrow. It is probable that all of them would have been cut to pieces, if Titus had not sent help and ordered the archers to stand at the upper ends of these narrow lanes; and he himself stood facing the greatest multitude of his enemies, and with his arrows he put a stop to them, to hinder them from coming on his men, before all his soldiers had finally retreated out of the city.

And thus the Romans were driven out, after they had held the second wall. Consequently, the fighting men in the city were elated, and began to think the Romans would never dare to come into the city any more; and that, if they themselves remained in it, they would never again be conquered; but God had blinded their minds for the guilt of their transgressions, nor would they see how much greater forces the Romans had than those who had now been expelled, no more than they discerned how a famine was creeping upon them; for so far they had fed themselves on the public miseries, and drunk the blood of the city. But now for a long time poverty had seized the better part of it, and a great many had already died for want of necessities; although the rebels actually supposed the destruction of the people benefited themselves; for they wanted none saved except those who were against a peace with the Romans and were resolved to live in opposition to them; and they were pleased when the multitude of those with a contrary opinion were consumed, as if they had been freed from a heavy burden; this was their attitude toward those in the city, while they covered themselves with their armor and thwarted the Romans when they were trying to get into the city again, by making a wall of their own dead bodies against that part of the wall that was cast down. Thus they valiantly defended themselves for three days.

But on the fourth day they could not resist the vehement assaults of Titus, but were compelled by force to flee where they had fled before; so he quietly took possession of that second wall again and demolished it entirely: and when he had put a garrison into the towers on the south parts of the city, he considered how he might assault the third wall.

Titus now resolved to relax the siege a little while, to afford the rebels time to consider; and to see if the demolishing of their second wall would not make them a little more compliant; or if they were not somewhat afraid of a famine, because the spoils they had gotten by violence would not be enough for them for long; so he used this time to form his plans. Since the appointed time had come when he must distribute the maintenance pay to the soldiers, he ordered the commanders to assemble the army in battle array, in the face of the enemy, and then give every one of the soldiers their pay. So the soldiers, according to custom, each opened their cases of arms, and paraded with their breastplates on; and the cavalry led their horses in fine trappings. Then the places before the city shone very splendidly for a great way; nor was there anything so pleasing to Titus’s own men, or so terrible to the enemy as that sight; for the whole old wall and the north side of the Temple were full of spectators, and the houses full of onlookers; nor was there any part of the city not covered with their multitudes; no, such terror seized the hardiest of the Jews themselves when they saw all the army in the same place, together with the fineness of their arms and the good order of their men, that the rebels would have changed their minds at that sight, if the crimes they had committed against the people had not been so horrible that they despaired of forgiveness from the Romans; but believing death by torture must be their punishment if they did not go on in defense of the city, they thought it much better to die in war. Their fate so dominated them that the innocent were to perish with the guilty, and the city was to be destroyed with the rebels in it.

The Romans spent four days distributing the maintenance pay to each of the legions; but on the fifth day, with no signs of peace from the Jews, Titus divided his legions, and began to raise banks, both at the tower of Antonia and at John’s monument. His plans were now to take the upper city at that monument and the Temple at the tower of Antonia; for if the Temple were not taken it would be dangerous to hold the city itself; so at each of these places he raised his embankments, each legion raising one. But the Idumeans, and those in arms with Simon, made sallies on those working at John’s monument, putting some halt to them; while John’s party, and the multitude of Zealots with them, did the same to those before the tower of Antonia. These Jews were now too hard for the Romans, not only in direct fighting, because they stood on higher ground, but because they had now learned to use their own engines; for constant use day after day by degrees had improved their skill; for they had three hundred engines for javelins and arrows, and forty for stones, with which they made it more tiresome for the Romans to raise their banks, and slowed their work; but then Titus, knowing the city would be either saved or destroyed for himself, did not fail to also urge the Jews to repent; so he mixed good counsel with his siege works; and being aware that exhortations are frequently more effectual than arms, he urged them to surrender the city, already practically taken, and save themselves; and he sent Josephus to speak to them in their own language; for he imagined they might yield to persuasion by one of their own.

So Josephus went round the wall, and tried to find a place out of range of their arrows, yet within hearing, and implored them, in many words, to spare themselves, to spare their country and their Temple, and not to be more hardhearted in these circumstances than foreigners themselves. Their own forefathers, men far superior to themselves, had yielded, because they knew that God was with the Romans, and now they cannot fight both famine and the siege of conquest. While Josephus was making this exhortation to the Jews, many of them ridiculed him from the wall, and many reproached him; some shot arrows at him; but when he could not persuade them by open good advice, he had recourse to their own history, reminding them of Pharaoh and the ten plagues, and the Philistines, and Sennacherib, and the king of Babylon, and Antiochus Epiphanes, and Aristobulus and John Hyrcanus, and of Antigonus, Herod and Sossius; that those who inhabit this holy place ought to commit the disposition of all things to God; and after these things he cried out aloud, “As for you, what have you done of those things recommended by our Legislator! And what have you not done of those things he has condemned! How much more impious you are than those who were so quickly taken! You have not avoided so much as those sins usually done in secret; I mean thefts, and treacherous plots against men, and adulteries. You are quarreling about violence and murders, and invent strange ways of wickedness. No, the Temple itself has become the waste receptacle of all, and this divine place is polluted by the hands of those of our own country; a place nevertheless reverenced by the Romans when it was at a distance from them, when they have permitted many of their own customs to give place to our Law. And, after all this, do you expect Him whom you have so impiously abused to be your supporter? To be sure then you have a right to be petitioners, and to call on Him to assist you, so pure are your hands!

He then reminded them of the king of Babylon, who took the city and burned the Temple, and said, “Yet I believe the Jews of that age were not so impious as you are. Thus, I cannot but suppose that God has fled out of his sanctuary, and stands on the side of those against whom you fight. Now, even a man, even if only a good man, will flee from an impure house, and hate those in it; and you persuade yourselves that God will abide with you in your iniquities, who sees all secret things, and hears what is kept most private! Now, what crime is there, I pray you, that is so much as kept secret among you, or is concealed by you! No, what is there that is not open to your very enemies! For you grandly display your transgressions, and fight with one another; and you make a public show of your injustice, as if it were virtue! However, there is a place for your supervised probation, if you are willing to accept it, and God is easily reconciled to those who confess their faults, and repent them. O hardhearted wretches that you are, throw down all your arms, and take pity on your country already going to ruin; turn from your wicked ways, and have regard for the excellency of that city you are going to betray, and to that excellent Temple with the donations of so many countries in it. Who could bear to be the first to set that Temple on fire! Who could be willing that these things should be no more! And what can deserve more to be preserved! O senseless creatures, more stupid than the stones themselves! And if you cannot look at these things with discerning eyes, yet however, have pity on your families, and set before every one of your eyes your children, and wives, and parents, who will be gradually consumed either by famine or by war.”

And he said he was willing to die if only they would return to a sound mind after his death.

As Josephus was speaking thus with a loud voice, the rebels would neither yield to what he said, not did they deem it safe for them to change their behavior; but the people had a great inclination to desert to the Romans; accordingly, some of them sold what they had, even their most precious treasures which they had stored away securely, for very little, and swallowed down pieces of gold, that they might not be found out by the robbers; and when they had escaped to the Romans, they went to stool, and had the means to provide plentifully for themselves; for Titus let a great number of them go away into the country, wherever they pleased; and the main reasons why they were so ready to desert were, that now they should be freed from those miseries they had endured in that city, and yet should not be in slavery to the Romans. However, John and Simon, with their factions, more carefully watched these men’s going out than they did the coming in of the Romans; and, if any one afforded even the least shadow of suspicion of such an intention, his throat was cut immediately.

Remember the words of Jesus, how he had said,

“When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its Desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it; for these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written.”

He also says to those who honor him,

“You shall not avenge yourselves. Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”

Now, Eusebius in his history says that he passes over the particular calamities that befell the Jews from the sword and other means used against them, and deems it only enough to add the calamities they endured from the famine, so that readers of his history might know in some measure that the divine vengeance did not long delay to visit them for their iniquity against the Christ of God. Let us, then, go through the tragedy of events which then occurred.

The richer classes, whether they stayed in the city or attempted to get out of it, were equally destroyed in both cases; for they were put to death on the pretext that they were going to desert, that the robbers might get what they had. The madness of the rebels also increased together with their hunger from the famine; both of those miseries every day inflamed them more and more; for wherever grain was seen, the robbers came running, and they searched private houses; and if they found any persons with food, they tortured them, because they denied they had any; and if they found none, they tormented them worse, supposing they had more carefully concealed it. If the bodies of these miserable wretches were in good condition, they supposed they were in no need of food at all; but if they were wasted away, they walked off without searching any further; nor did they think it proper to kill them, seeing they would very soon die of themselves for want of food. Many sold what they had for one measure of wheat, if they were richer, but of barley, if they were poorer. Then they shut themselves up in the inmost rooms of their houses, and ate the grain they had gotten; some without grinding it, because of the extremity of want they were in, and others baked it as bread, as both necessity and fear dictated; no table was set for a meal, but they snatched the bread out of the fire, half-baked, and very quickly ate it.

It was a miserable case, that the more powerful had more than enough food, and the weaker were lamenting for lack of it. But the famine overcame all other considerations, and of all things it is most destructive of modest decency and human respect; for what was worthy of reverence was despised; children pulled the very morsels their fathers were eating out of their very mouths, and so the mothers did to their infants; and when those most dear to them were perishing under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last drops that might have preserved their lives; and even while they ate this way, they were not concealed; but the rebels everywhere came on them immediately, and snatched away from them what they had gotten from others; for when they saw any house shut up, this was a sign to them that the people inside had gotten some food, and they broke open the doors, and ran in and took what they were eating, almost up out of their very throats, by force; old men who gripped their food tightly were beaten; and if women hid in their hands what they had, their hair was torn for this; no respect was shown either to the aged or to infants, but they lifted up children who clung to the morsels they had gotten, and dashed them down on the floor; but they were still more barbarously cruel to those who had prevented their coming in and had actually dared to swallow down what they were going to seize, as if they had been unjustly defrauded of their rights. They also invented terrible methods of torment to discover where any food was: they stopped up the private parts of the miserable wretches, and drove sharp stakes up their anuses!, and a man was forced to endure what is terrible even to hear, to make him confess that he had only one loaf of bread, or that he might uncover a handful of concealed barley meal; and these tormentors were not themselves hungry; for it would perhaps have been less barbarous if necessity had compelled them; but this was done as a way of keeping in practice through training by exercising their madness, and to prepare provisions for themselves for the following days. These men also confronted those coming back inside, who had crept out of the city by night, as far as the Roman guards, to gather some plants and herbs that grew wild; and when they had gotten clear of the enemy, these men then snatched from them what they had brought back, even while they implored them, frequently by calling on the tremendous name of God, to give them back some part of what they had brought back, even though these men would not give them the least crumb; and they were told to content themselves with the fact that they were only robbed, and not also killed at the same time.

These were the afflictions which the lower classes suffered from these tyrants’ guards; but men who were dignitaries, counsellors, magistrates, scholars and Teachers of the law of Moses, nobles and rich, were carried before the tyrants themselves; some were falsely accused of treacherous plots, and so were destroyed; others were charged with conspiring to betray the city to the Romans: but the quickest and most available way of all was to bribe someone to affirm that they had resolved to desert to the enemy; and he who was utterly despoiled of what he had by Simon, was sent back again to John, and from those who had already been plundered by John, Simon got what remained, to such an extent that they drank the blood of the populace to one another, and divided the dead bodies of the poor creatures between them as their feast; and though they fought each other, on account of their ambition for dominion, yet they very well agreed in their wicked practices; for he who did not inform the other tyrant of what he had gotten by the miseries of others, only seemed, in this respect, to be far less guilty; and he who did not partake of what was gotten by the other tyrant, when he was informed of what he had got, grieved, as if at the loss of a valuable thing, that he had had no hand in such barbarity. It is therefore impossible to go distinctly over every instance of these men’s iniquity.

Now the work on Titus’s embankments had progressed a great way, in spite of the fact that his soldiers had been very much harassed from the wall. He then sent a party of cavalry, and ordered them to set ambushes for those Jews who went out to the valleys to gather food. Some of these Jews were indeed rebel fighting men, who were not content with what they got from the people by force; but the majority of them were poor people, who were deterred from deserting by concern for their relatives inside; for they could not expect to escape together with their wives and children without the knowledge of the rebels; nor could they think of leaving relatives to be slain by the robbers on their account: no, the severity of the famine made them bold in going out; so, when they were concealed from the robbers, nothing remained but being taken by the enemy; and when they were about to be taken, they were forced to defend themselves, out of fear of being punished, thinking it was too late to make any supplications for mercy after they had fought the Romans; so they were first whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of tortures before they died, and then they were crucified before the wall of the city. So the soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught to the crosses, one one way and another another, for amusement, when their number was so great that they lacked both room for the crosses, and crosses for the bodies. This miserable procedure made Titus greatly pity them, while every day they caught five hundred Jews; no, some days they caught more; yet it did not appear safe for him to let those taken by force go their way; and to set a guard over so many, he saw, would make those who guarded them useless to him. The main reason he did not forbid that cruelty was that he expected the Jews might perhaps yield at the sight, out of the fear that they themselves might afterward be liable to the same cruel treatment, if they did not make supplication as deserters.

But the rebels were so far from repenting at this sad sight, that, on the contrary, they made the rest of the multitude believe otherwise, for they brought the relatives of those who had deserted up on the wall, with those of the populace who were very eager to go over to the Romans on the security Titus offered them, and showed them what miseries those who fled to the Romans endured; and told them that those who were caught were supplicants surrendering, and not those taken as prisoners. This sight kept within the city many who were so eager to desert, before the truth was known; yet some of them ran away immediately, expecting certain punishment, esteeming death from their enemies a more tolerable departure, compared with that by famine.

So Titus commanded that the hands of many of those caught should be cut off, that they might not be thought deserters, and might be believed on account of their calamity, and sent them in to John and Simon, with this exhortation, that they should now at length desist, and not force him to destroy the city, and they would have the advantages of repentance, even in their utmost distress; and that they would preserve their own lives, and so fine a city of their own, and that which was their peculiar Temple. He then went round about the banks that were cast up, and hurried them, to show that his words should shortly be followed by his deeds.

In answer, the rebels cast insults on Titus himself, and on his father also, and cried out with a loud voice, that they despised death, and did well in preferring it before slavery; that they would do all the damage to the Romans they could while they had breath in them; as for their own city, since he said they were to be destroyed, they had no concern about it; and that the world itself was a better temple to God than this; and that this Temple would yet be preserved by Him who dwelt there, Whom they still had as their assistant in this war, and therefore they laugh at all his threats, which would come to nothing; because the conclusion of the whole depended on God alone. These words were mixed with insults, and with them they made a mighty clamoring noise.

The Romans began to raise their embankments on Friday nine May A.D. 70, on the Day of Preparation, the twelfth day of the month Artemisius, which is Iyyar, and they labored hard continually for seventeen days to finish them by the twenty-ninth day of the same month Iyyar, on the Sabbath, that is, on Saturday twenty-six May A.D. 70; and four great banks were raised, one at the tower of Antonia, raised by the Legio quinta Alaudae, the Fifth Legion Gallica, opposite the middle of the pool Struthius; another by the Legio duodecima Fulminata, the Thunderbolt Twelfth Legion, about nine and a half yards from the other; but that of the Legio decima Fretensis, the Tenth Legion Fretensis was a great way off, on the north quarter, at the pool Amygdalon, and that of the Legio quinta decima Apollinaris, Apollo’s Fifteenth Legion about fourteen yards from it, at the high priest’s monument. And now, the engines were brought.

But John from within had made his own preparation and undermined the space near the tower of Antonia, as far as the embankments themselves, at the same time supporting the ground over this mine with beams laid across one another as he worked, so the Roman works stood on an uncertain foundation, an unstable foundation. Then he ordered materials daubed all over with pitch and bitumen brought in, and set on fire; and as the cross beams supporting the banks burned, the tunnel suddenly collapsed, and the embankments shook and fell into the ditch with a deafening noise. Now at first a very thick smoke and dust arose, as the fire was choked by the falling bank; but as the buried materials were gradually consumed, suddenly a plain fire broke out, which dismayed the Romans, and the shrewdness of the strategy discouraged them; and this accident, coming at a time when they thought they had already achieved their purpose, cooled their expectations for the time to come, and they thought the effort to extinguish the fire would be pointless, since the embankments were swallowed up and useless to them.

Two days after this, on Saturday thirty-one May, the Sabbath, the fifth day of the month Daesius, which is Sivan, Simon and his party made an attempt to destroy the other banks, on the north quarter and at the high priest’s monument, for the Romans had brought their engines to bear there, and already began to make the wall shake. And here, Tephtheus, from Garsis in Galilee, and Megassarus, descended from some of Queen Mariamme’s servants, and with them Chagiras son of Nabateus, from Adiabene, snatched some torches and without fear or delay, and acting as if they were friends of the Romans, ran suddenly on the engines and set their machines on fire; and despite javelins and arrows, and assaults on all sides with swords, they did not withdraw from danger before the fire had caught hold; but when the Romans came running from their camp to save their engines, the Jews hindered them from the wall, and fought those who tried to quench the fire without any regard for their own physical danger. So the Romans pulled the engines out of the fire while the hurdles covering them were on fire; but the Jews caught hold of the battering-rams through the flame itself, and held them fast, although the iron on them was red hot; and now the fire spread from the engines to the embankments, and prevented those who came to defend them, while the Romans were surrounded with the flame; and, despairing of saving their works from it, they retreated to their camp.

Then the numbers of these attacking Jews were increased by those in the city who came to their assistance; and being very bold with their success, their violent assaults were almost unbearable, and they proceeded as far as the fortifications of the enemy’s camp, and fought the guards. Now since the law of the Romans was to punish with death whoever abandoned his post for any reason whatsoever, that body of soldiers stood firm, preferring to die fighting to being put to death for negligence or desertion; then, many of the others, not guards, who had run away, seeing their desperate fight, out of shame turned back again; and setting their engines against the wall, they kept more of the multitude from coming out of the city; for the Jews now fought hand to hand with all they met, without regard for their own personal safety, and fell against the points of their enemy’s spears, and attacked them bodies against bodies; for by these courageous assaults they were now too difficult for the Romans; and the Romans gave way more to their boldness than to the sense of the harm they had received from them.

And now Titus came from the tower of Antonia where he had gone to look for a place to raise other banks, and severely reprimanded the soldiers for allowing their own walls to be in danger, like men besieged, when they had taken the walls of their enemies, while the Jews, already in a sort of prison, were allowed to sally out against them. Then with some chosen troops he went round the enemy, and fell on their flank himself; so the Jews, who had been frontally assaulted, wheeled about, and continued the fight. The armies also were now mixed together, and the blinding dust and the deafening noise so hindered them, that neither side could tell enemy from friend. However, the Jews did not flinch, not so much from real strength, as from desperation. The Romans also would not yield, because they esteemed glory, and their reputation in war, and because Titus himself went into danger in the forefront of the battle; and the Romans were so angry that they would probably have taken the whole multitude of Jews had they not retreated into the city. But now, seeing that the embankments were demolished, these Romans were deeply downcast at the loss of all their long efforts, and in only one hour’s time; and many despaired of taking the city with only their usual engines of war.

Titus now consulted with his commanders about what was to be done; and he heard each of their arguments. However, when they had spoken, Titus, in response to each of them, said first, that he did not think it fit for so great an army to lie entirely idle, and yet it was in vain to fight those who would eventually destroy each other; he also showed how impractical it was to cast up any more banks, lacking materials; and to guard against the Jews’ coming out was still more impractical; also, to invest the whole city with his army was not very easy, because of its extent and difficult position, and otherwise dangerous, from the sallies the Jews might make out of the city; for though they might guard the known passages out of the place, yet, when the Jews found themselves under the greatest distress, they would use those secret passages out that they knew well; and if any provisions were carried in by stealth, the siege would be delayed so much the longer. So one by one he answered each of their proposals.

He also admitted that he feared the length of time spent would diminish the glory of his success; for though it is true that time perfects every thing, yet, to do what we do in a little time, is still necessary to gain reputation: therefore his opinion was, that if they aimed for quickness with security, they must build a wall around the whole city; which he thought was the only way to prevent the Jews from coming out by any way, and then they would either entirely despair of saving the city, and surrender it to him, or be more easily conquered when the famine had further weakened them; for besides this wall, he would not rest with that, but take care to have embankments raised again when those who would oppose them had become weaker: but “if anyone thinks such a work too great to be finished without much difficulty, he ought to consider that it is not fitting for Romans to undertake any small work, and that none but God himself could accomplish any great thing with ease.” But this he said not of himself, for he was neither Jew nor Christian, but as a pagan Gentile he spoke the truth with his lips, giving glory to the one true God.

These arguments prevailed with the commanders. So Titus ordered that the army should be assigned to distributions of this work; and now a kind of divine fury came on the soldiers, so that what would naturally have required some months, was done in so incredibly short an interval that the whole was completed in three days, on Tuesday, three June A.D. 70. Now the length of this wall was five miles, less an eighth of a mile, eight thousand five hundred eighty yards, twenty-five thousand seven hundred forty feet. When Titus had encircled the city with this wall and posted the garrisons, he himself went round the wall at the first night watch, and observed how the guard was kept; the second watch he allotted to Alexander; the commanders of the legions took the third watch. They also cast lots among themselves who should be on watch in the night, and who should go all night long making the rounds of the spaces between the garrisons. So now all expectation of escape was cut off from the Jews, along with their liberty to go out of the city.

About this same time in Europe an alarming revolt in the Rhineland, for independence and freedom from forced conscription, was led by the Batavian general Julius Civilis. The revolt of Civilis was particularly problematic to the Romans, since it threatened the loss of an important and wealthy province, which would have weakened the Rhine frontier; unchecked, it could have renewed troubles in other regions of the empire, particularly Judea. On the moonless night of Saturday seven June A.D. 70, after two years of marshalling forces in preparation to fight, Civilis launched a surprise attack on the Romans gathered at Trier. There now followed three months of bloody struggle.

The prosecution of the war in Britain, which had been suspended for some years, was now resumed by Vespasian, who was on his way to Rome; and he sent there his cousin Petilius Cerialis, who by his bravery extended the limits of the Roman province. Cerialis was very familiar with local rebellions. Ten years prior, he had served in Britannia under Governor Paulinus against the rebel Queen Boudica, and had probably served with Civilis while he was stationed there as well.

In Jerusalem, all expectation of escape was now cut off from the Jews, along with their liberty to go out of the city. Then the famine widened its progress, devouring whole houses and families; upper rooms were full of women and children dying; and the lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; children also and young men wandered about the marketplaces like shadows, all swollen with famine, and fell down dead wherever their misery finally seized them. Those who were sick themselves were not able to bury them; and those who were hearty and well were deterred from it by the great multitude of dead bodies, and their uncertainty about how soon they themselves should die, for many died as they were burying others, and many in anticipation went to their coffins before the fatal hour came! The famine choked all natural passions; under these calamities no lamentation was made, nor any mournful sounds; for those who were just going to die, looked with dry eyes and open mouths on those who had gone to their rest before them. A deep silence, a kind of deadly night, had also seized the city; while the robbers were yet still more terrible than these miseries; for they broke open houses which were nothing more than graves of dead bodies, and plundered what they had; and carrying off the covering of the bodies, they left laughing, and tested the points of their swords on these dead bodies; to prove their mettle, they thrust through some of those who were still alive and lying on the ground, who had been clinging to life; but those who implored them to lend their right hand, and their sword to dispatch them, they proudly refused, and left them to be consumed by the famine; and every one of these died with their eyes fixed on the Temple, leaving the rebels alive behind them.

Now at first the rebels ordered that the dead should be buried, paid for out of the public treasury, because of the stench. But afterward, when they could not do that, they had them thrown from the walls into the valleys below. However, when Titus, in making his rounds along those valleys, saw them full of dead bodies, and the thick putrefaction oozing all about them, he gave a groan; and spreading out his hands to heaven, called God to witness that this was not his doing: and this was the sad case of the city itself.

But the Romans were very joyful, since none of the rebels could now make sallies out of the city, and were themselves without any consolation; and the famine already touched them as well. The Romans, besides, had huge supplies of grain and other necessities from Syria and the neighboring provinces; many would stand near the wall of the city, and show the people what great quantities of provisions they had, and make the enemy more keenly aware of their famine by the great plenty, even to the fullness of their bellies to satisfaction, which they had themselves.

However, when the rebels still showed no inclination of yielding, Titus, from his sympathy for the people who remained, and his earnest desire of rescuing from these miseries what was still left, began to raise his banks again, although materials for them were hard to come by; for all the trees about the city had already been cut down for making the former embankments. Yet the soldiers brought with them other materials from a distance of three and three-quarter miles, and raised banks in four parts, much greater than the former, though this was done only at the tower of Antonia. So Titus made his rounds through the legions, and hurried the works, and showed the robbers that they were now in his hands.

But these men, and these only, were incapable of repenting of the wickedness they had been guilty of, since they could still tear the dead bodies of the people as dogs do, and fill the prisons with those who were sick. So Simon would not permit Matthias, by whose help he had gotten possession of the city, to depart without torment. This Matthias was the son of Boethus, and one of the high priests, who had been very faithful to the people, and held in great esteem; so he had him brought before him, and condemned him to die for being on the side of the Romans, without giving him leave to make his defense. He condemned also his three sons to die with him: for the fourth had already anticipated him by running away to Titus before. And when Matthias begged that he might be slain before his sons, as a favor, for having arranged for the gates of the city to be opened to him, Simon ordered that he should be slain last: he charged Ananus, the son of Bamadus, and the most barbarous of all his guards, that he was not to be slain before he had seen his sons slain before his eyes, and facing the Romans. As a personal joke he also told him that he might now see if those to whom he intended to defect would send him any helpers or not; but he still forbade their dead bodies be buried. After slaughtering these, he also slew Ananias, a priest, the son of Masambulus, a person of eminency, also Aristeus, the scribe of the Sanhedrin, born at Emmaus, and with them fifteen men of prominence among the people. They also slew any who joined in lamenting these men, without any further examination.

Now when Judas, the son of Judas, one of Simon’s commanding officers entrusted by him to keep one of the towers, saw this, he called together ten of those under him, and most faithful to him, and spoke to them, “How long shall we bear these miseries; or, what expectation have we of deliverance by continuing to be faithful to such wicked wretches? Has not the famine already come against us? Are not the Romans in a way already in the city? Has not Simon become treacherous to his benefactors? And, is there no reason to fear he will very soon bring us to a similar punishment, while the security the Romans offer us is sure? Come, let us surrender this wall, and save ourselves and the city. Nor will Simon be very much harmed, if, now that he despairs of deliverance, he is brought to justice a little sooner than he thinks.”

Now these ten were persuaded by these arguments; so he sent off the rest of those who were under him, some one way and some another, so no discovery might be made of what they had resolved. So about 9 A.M., the third hour of the day, he called to the Romans from the tower; but they did not believe him, and delayed the matter, believing they should get possession of the city in a little time, without any hazard: but Simon was made aware of the matter, and as Titus was just coming with his armed men, Simon took the tower into his own custody, before it was surrendered, and seized these men, and put them to death in the sight of the Romans themselves; and when he had mangled their dead bodies, he threw them down before the wall.

In the meantime, as Josephus was going round the city, he was wounded in the head by a stone thrown at him, and fell down; the Jews immediately made a sally, and he would have been hurried away into the city if Titus had not immediately sent men to protect him; and, as they were fighting, Josephus was taken up, but heard little. So the rebels supposed they had now slain the one man they most desired to kill, and made a great noise of rejoicing.

However, Josephus soon recovered, and came out, and shouted that it would not be long before they should be punished for the wound they had given him. He also made a fresh exhortation to the people to come out, on the security that would be given them. This sight of Josephus greatly encouraged the people, on whose account alone they could dare to desert to the Romans, but brought a paralyzing fear on the rebels. Some of the deserters, having no other way, immediately leaped down from the wall, while others went out of the city with stones, as if they would fight them; but at once they fled away to the Romans: but here a worse fate accompanied them; for when they first came to the Romans, puffed up by the famine, and swelled like men in a dropsy, they all quickly overfilled those empty bodies, swallowing so much they burst, except those who knew enough to restrain their appetites, and, by degrees, took food into bodies unaccustomed to it.

Yet another plague seized those thus preserved; for one of the Syrian deserters was caught gathering pieces of gold out of the Jews’ excrements; for the deserters used to swallow pieces of gold, before they came out, because the rebels searched them all for these; for there was a great quantity of gold in the city, so much that what sold for twenty-five Attic drams was now sold in the Roman camp for twelve; but when this trick was discovered in one instance, the rumor filled their camps that the deserters came to them full of gold. So the multitude of auxiliary troops, Arabians, with the Syrians, descendants of Ishmael and the Greeks, ripped up those who came as supplicants, and searched their bellies. Josephus says that it seemed to him that no misery befell the Jews more terrible than this, since in one night’s time about two thousand of these deserters were thus dissected.

When Titus knew of this wicked practice, he would have surrounded those guilty of it with his cavalry, and shot them dead, had they not been so very many; and those liable to punishment would have been far more than those they had slain. However, he called together the commanders of the auxiliary troops he had with him, as well as the commanders of the Roman legions; for some of his own soldiers had also been guilty, as he had been informed; and with great indignation against both he threatened that he would put such men to death, if any of them were discovered to be so insolent again; moreover, he charged the legions to search for anyone suspected of this, and bring them to him; but it appeared that, for all their dread of punishment, the love of money was too much for them; but in reality it was God who had condemned the whole nation, and turned every course that was taken for their preservation to their destruction.

Therefore, this Abomination, which was forbidden by Titus under such a threat, was privately dared; and these barbarians would still go out, and meet those who deserted before anyone saw them; and looking about to see that no Roman spied them, they dissected them, and pulled this polluted money out of their bowels, which was found only in a few of them, while a great many were destroyed by the bare expectation of gain, which made many who were deserting go back again into the city.

Now, when John could no longer plunder the people, he resorted to sacrilege, and melted down many of the sacred utensils given to the Temple; also many vessels necessary for the ministers of holy things, the caldrons, dishes and tables; no, he did not even abstain from those pouring-vessels sent them by Augustus and his wife; for the Roman emperors had ever honored and adorned this Temple; while this man, a circumsized Jew, seized the donations of foreigners; and said to those with him that it was proper to use divine things without fear while they were fighting for the Divinity, and that those whose warfare is for the Temple should live off the Temple, and for this reason he emptied the vessels of sacred wine and oil, which the priests kept for pouring on burnt offerings, and reclined as lord in the inner court of the Temple and distributed it among the multitude, each of whom, in their anointing themselves and drinking, used more than a gallon of them: Josephus supposes that had the Romans delayed any longer in coming against these villains, the city would either have been swallowed up by earthquake, or swept away by a massive deluge, or else destroyed by the same kind of thunder that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha and devastated all the soil of the whole country around, for it had brought forth a generation of men much more atheistic than those who suffered such punishments; for it was by their madness that all the people came to be destroyed.

Manneus, the son of Lazarus, also ran away to Titus as a deserter at this very time, and told him that there had been carried out through the gate entrusted to his care no fewer than a hundred and fifteen thousand eight hundred and eighty dead bodies, in the seventy-seven day interval between the fourteenth day of the month Xanthicus, which is Nisan, the same day of Passover when the Romans pitched their camp by the city, and the first day of the month Panemus, which is Tammuz—between Friday eleven April A.D. 70, and Thursday twenty-six June A.D. 70—which is an average of one thousand five hundred and five bodies every day through that one gate alone. This was itself an enormous multitude; and though this man himself had not been appointed officer of that gate, yet he was appointed to pay the public stipend for carrying these bodies out, and was obliged by necessity to number them, while the rest were buried by their relations, though their entire burial was only to take them away, and throw them out of the city.

After him, there also ran away to Titus many of the eminent citizens, who told him the entire number of the poor who were dead; that no fewer than six hundred thousand were thrown out at the gates, though the number of the rest still could not be determined; and they told him further, that when they were no longer able to carry out the dead bodies of the poor, they laid their corpses in heaps in very large houses, and shut them up there; also that a medimnus of wheat, one and a half bushels, was sold for a talent; and when, a while afterward, it was not possible to gather herbs, because the city was all walled around, some persons were driven to the terrible distress of searching the common sewers and old dung hills of cattle, and to eat the dung they found; and what they once could not endure to look at they now used for food.

As soon as the Romans heard all this, they pitied them; while the rebels, who also saw it, did not repent, but allowed the same distress to come on themselves, blinded by that fate which was already coming on the city, and on themselves also.

The miseries of Jerusalem grew worse and worse every day, and the rebels were still more irritated under these calamities, even while the famine preyed on them, after it had preyed on the people. The multitude of carcasses lying in heaps one after another, was a horrible sight, and produced a pestilential stench, which hindered those who would make sallies out of the city and fight the enemy; but since those who were already used to ten thousand murders were to go in battle-array, and must necessarily tread on those dead bodies as they marched, they were not terrified, nor did they pity men as they marched over them; nor did they believe this affront offered to the deceased was a bad sign; but as their right hands were already polluted with the murders of their own countrymen, and they ran out in that condition to fight with foreigners, they did not go on with the war as if they had any expectation of victory, but they took a fierce animal glory in their despair of deliverance. And now the Romans, although suffering greatly in getting their materials together, after cutting down all the trees in the country for eleven and a quarter miles around the city, raised their embankments in twenty-one days. The most beautiful suburbs of the city, places once adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were now a Desolation everywhere; for the war had utterly laid waste every sign of beauty; and if anyone who knew the place before, had suddenly come to it now, he would not have recognized it; but even though he was at the city itself, he still would have inquired about it.

And now that the banks were finished, they were also grounds for fear, to both the Romans and the Jews; for the Jews expected that the city would be taken, unless they could burn those embankments, as the Romans expected that, if these were once burned, they should never be able to take it; for there was a mighty scarcity of materials, and the bodies of the soldiers began to fail them with such hard labors, as also their souls fainted with so many episodes of failure. These considerations made the Romans keep a stronger guard about their banks than they had formerly done.

But now John and his party inside the tower of Antonia took steps for their own security, in case this wall should be thrown down, and went to work before the battering-rams were brought against them. Yet they did not clearly plan their attempts, but when they went out with their torches, they came back greatly discouraged, even before they got near the embankments; they were not coordinated, but went out in small bands, at separate intervals, and cautiously, without Jewish courage; defective in boldness, in violence of assault, in running together on the enemy, and in persevering, even when they do not at first succeed.

However, they now went out to attack, but with less motivation than usual, and as they began this their assault, at the same time they found the Romans battle-ready, and more courageous than ordinary, and that they guarded their banks both with their bodies and their entire armor, to such a degree on all sides, that they left no room for the fire to get among them, and that every one of their souls was in such good courage, that they would sooner die than desert their ranks; for besides the notion that all their expectations were cut off if their works were burned, the soldiers were greatly ashamed that, in this war, cunning should overcome courage, madness armor, multitude skill, and Jews Romans. As they came out of the city, the Romans now also had the advantage that their siege engines cooperated in throwing arrows and stones as far as the attacking Jews; so that each fallen man was an immediate obstacle to the next man, and the danger of going any farther dampened the zeal of their attempt; and some of those who had run under the arrows were terrified by the good close order of the enemy’s ranks before they ever came to a close fight, and others being pricked with their spears, turned back; and finally, reproaching themselves for cowardice, they retreated without doing anything. This futile attack was made on Thursday twenty-six June A.D. 70, the first day of the month Panemus, which is Tammuz.

So, when the Jews had retreated the Romans brought their engines, all the while stones were thrown at them from the tower Antonia, and they were being assaulted by fire and sword, and all sorts of arrows, which necessity demanded the Jews use; yet these Romans struggled hard to bring them, deeming this zeal of the Jews was to prevent any impacts on the Antonia, because its wall was weak, and its foundations rotten. However, that tower did not yield to blows from the engines; but the Romans bore the blows of the enemy’s arrows, which constantly came on them from above, and the stones, and did not themselves yield to any of those dangers, and so they brought their engines to bear; but then, some in desperation threw their shields over their bodies together, and partly with their hands, partly with their bodies, and partly with crowbars, they undermined its foundations, and with great pains removed four of its stones. Then night came, and put an end to this struggle for the moment; however, that night the wall was so shaken by the battering-rams where John had earlier undermined their banks, that the ground gave way, and the wall fell down suddenly.

This unexpected accident affected both parties, in unexpected ways; for though one might expect the Jews would be discouraged, having made no provision for it, they took courage, because the tower Antonia was still standing; and the unexpected joy of the Romans at the fall of the wall was quickly quenched by the sight of another wall, which John and his party had built inside it. However, this one seemed easier to get up to through the broken sections of the former wall that was now thrown down. This new wall appeared also to be much weaker than the tower of Antonia, so that the Romans imagined it had been erected so quickly that they should soon be able to overthrow it; yet no one dared now to go up to this wall; for whoever first attempted it would most certainly be killed.

And now Titus, on considering that the eagerness of soldiers in war is chiefly excited by expectations of success and by good words, and that exhortation and promises frequently make men forget the hazards they run, and sometimes even to despise death itself, he assembled the most courageous part of his army, and tried to do what he could with his men, by several methods of persuasion; he cited as happy the estate of those who die bravely in war, and contrasted as ignoble the state of those who die by sickness in their beds; and then he said, “As for that person who first mounts the wall, I should blush for shame if I did not make him to be envied by others, by those rewards I would bestow on him. If such an one escape with his life, he shall have the command of others, who are now only his equals; although it be true too, that the greatest rewards will accrue to those who die in the attempt.”

At this speech of Titus, the rest of the multitude were frightened at so great a danger. But there was one named Sabinus, who was the first who rose, who said he would voluntarily choose death for him. He was slender and black, and did not appear to be a powerful warrior; yet with zealous passion he insisted that he would make the assault. Then he, and no more than eleven others, marched up to the wall just about twelve noon, the sixth hour of the day, excited by a divine fury. Those who guarded the wall shot at them, and also rolled very large stones on them, which overcame some of those eleven with him. And though Sabinus was overwhelmed, yet he did not give up the violence of his attack before he had gotten up on top of the wall and put the enemy to flight. The Jews were astonished at his great strength, and imagining that more of them had gotten upon the wall than really had, they were put to flight. But then Sabinus stumbled over a large stone, and fell headlong on it with a very great noise. At this the Jews turned around, and when they saw he was alone, they shot arrows at him from every side as he got up on his knee and covered himself with his shield, and he wounded many who came to him, and at length he was covered with arrows before he gave up the ghost. The Jews dashed three of his partners to pieces with stones, and slew them as they reached the top of the wall; the other eight, being wounded, were pulled down and carried back to the camp. These things were done on the Sabbath, Saturday twenty-eight June A.D. 70, the third day of the month Panemus, which is Tammuz.

Now two days afterward, after sunset Sunday, beginning Monday thirty June, about midnight twelve of those men who were front guards keeping watch on the embankments got together, and called to them the standard-bearer of the Legio quinta Alaudae, the Fifth Legion Larks, and two others of a troop of cavalry, and one trumpeter: about 3 A.M., the ninth hour of the night, these went without noise through the ruins, to the tower of Antonia; and when they had cut the throats of the first guards of the place as they were asleep, they got possession of the wall, and ordered the trumpeter to sound his trumpet. At that sound, the rest of the guards on that wall jumped up and ran away before anyone could see how many had gotten up; for from the fear they were in, and the sound of the trumpet, they imagined a great number of the enemy had gotten up.

But as soon as Titus heard the signal he ordered the army to put on their armor immediately, and came there with his commanders, and ascended first of all, and the chosen men with him. And as the Jews fled to the Temple, they fell into that mine John had dug under the Roman banks.

“The pit they had dug for others, they fell into themselves.”

Then the rebels of both bodies of the Jewish army, the one belonging to John, and the other belonging to Simon, drove them away with the highest degree of force and alacrity, esteeming themselves entirely ruined if the Romans once got into the Temple; the Romans seeing the same thing as the beginning of their complete conquest. So a terrible battle was fought at the entrance of the Temple, while the Romans were forcing their way in order to get possession of that Temple, and the Jews were driving them back to the tower of Antonia; the arrows on both sides were useless in this battle, as well as the spears, and both sides drew swords and fought with all their strength hand to hand at random, mixed with one another and confounded in that narrow place; while the noise they made was a confusing din, because it was so very loud. Great slaughter was now made on both sides, and the combatants trod on the bodies and armor of those who were dead, dashing them to pieces; but those in the first ranks were under the necessity of killing or being killed, without any way of escaping; for those who came from behind forced those before them to go on, on both sides, without leaving any space between the armies. At length the Jews’ violent zeal was too hard for the Romans’ skill, and the battle had already turned entirely that way; for the fight had lasted ten hours, from 3 A.M., the ninth hour of the night, to 1 P.M., the seventh hour of the day, Monday, while the Jews came in crowds all during the battle, motivated by the danger the Temple was in; the Romans having no more here than a part of their army; for those legions on which the soldiers depended had not come up. So the Romans thought it was enough at present to take possession of the tower of Antonia. When the Jews at last withdrew, the Romans did not sound the pursuit.

And now Titus ordered those of his soldiers with him to dig down and overthrow the foundations of that tower, and make ready also a broad, easy avenue for his army to come up.

Meanwhile, twelve days later, on the Sabbath, Saturday twelve July A.D. 70, the seventeenth day of Panemus, which is Tammuz, Titus was informed that, on that very day, that which is called the daily sacrifice had not been offered to God, for lack of men to offer it, and that the people were grievously troubled by this; he himself had Josephus brought to him, and commanded him to say the same things to John that he had said before, that he might come out with as many of his men as he pleased, to fight, without danger of destroying either his city or Temple; but that he desired that he not defile the Temple, nor by fighting there offend against God. Josephus stood where he might be heard, not only by John, but by many more, and then declared what Titus had charged him to say, in the common language of the Jews in Judea, earnestly praying them to spare their own city, and to prevent that fire now so ready to seize the Temple, and to resume again the offering of their usual sacrifices to God. When he had spoken, and had rebuked John for his sacrileges and murders, and again promised that the Romans shall still forgive him, he said, with groans, and tears in his eyes, “Are not both the city and the entire Temple now full of the dead bodies of your countrymen? It is God therefore, it is God himself who is bringing on this fire, to purge that city and Temple by means of the Romans, and is going to pluck up this city, which is full of pollutions.”

As Josephus spoke these words, his discourse influenced a great many of the upper class; but truly some of them were so afraid of the guards sent by the rebels, that they waited where they were, satisfied that both they and the city were already doomed to destruction. Some, watching for any opportunity to get quietly away, fled to the Romans. And then a great many fled to the Romans. These men also got together before the Romans in a great number, and calling out implored the rebels, with groans, and tears in their eyes, to receive the Romans entirely into the city, and again save their place of residence; but, if they would not agree, that they would at least depart out of the Temple, and save the holy house for their own use; for the Romans would not dare to set the sanctuary on fire, except under the most pressing necessity.

Yet the rebels still more and more contradicted them; and while they cast loud and bitter reproaches on these deserters, they also set their engines for throwing arrows, javelins and stones, on the sacred gates of the inner Temple, at effective intervals, so that all the space round about and within the outer court of the Temple, the Court of the Gentiles, might be compared to a burying ground, so great was the number of the dead bodies there; just as the holy house itself might be compared to a citadel or fortress stronghold. So, these men in their armor rushed over holy places that were otherwise unapproachable, while their hands were still warm with the blood of their own people, which they had shed; no, they proceeded to such great transgressions, that the very same outrage the Jews would naturally have had against Romans for such transgressions, the Romans now had against Jews, for their gross impiety with regard to their own Jewish religious customs. Indeed, there was not one of the Roman soldiers who did not look with sacred horror on the holy house, and adored it, and wished that the robbers would repent before their miseries became incurable.

Titus, now deeply affected, rebuked John and his party for polluting the holy house with the blood of both foreigners and Jews; and he said, “Why do you trample upon dead bodies in this Temple? And why do you pollute this holy house with the blood of both foreigners and Jews themselves? I appeal to the gods of my own country, and to every god that ever had regard for this place, for I do not suppose it to be regarded by any of them now; I also appeal to my own army, and to those Jews who are now with me, and even to you yourselves, that I do not force you to defile this your sanctuary; and if only you will change the place where you will fight, no Roman shall either come near your sanctuary, or offer any affront to it; no, I will endeavor to preserve for you your holy house, whether you will or not.”

But when Titus saw that these men, both the robbers and the tyrant, were neither to be moved by compassion toward themselves, nor had any concern that the holy house be spared, he proceeded, unwillingly, to go on again with the war against them. He could not bring all his army against them, the place was so narrow; but choosing thirty soldiers of the most valiant out of every hundred, and committing a thousand to each tribune, and making Sextus Cerealis their commander-in-chief, he gave orders to attack the guard of the Temple about 3 A.M., the ninth hour of that night, which is anciently the hour of the power of darkness; but now, in his armor, and preparing to go, the commanders, because of the greatness of the danger, suggested that he would do more by sitting above in the tower of Antonia, as a dispenser of rewards to soldiers who distinguished themselves in the fight, than by coming down and hazarding his own person in their front; for they would all fight stoutly while Titus looked on. Titus complied, and said that the only reason he did so was that he might be able to judge their courageous actions, and that no valiant soldier might be unnoticed and miss his reward; and no cowardly soldier might go unpunished; but that he himself, who was to be the dispenser of punishments and rewards to them, might be an eyewitness, and be able to give evidence of all that was done. So he sent the soldiers about their work at the designated hour, while he went out himself to a higher place in the tower of Antonia, where he might see what was done, and there waited with impatience to see the event.

However, the soldiers sent did not find the Temple guards asleep, as they expected; but were immediately obliged to fight with them hand to hand, as they rushed with violence on them with a great shout. Now, as soon as the rest of them in the Temple heard that shout of the watch, they ran out in troops on them. The Romans competed with each other over who should fight the most strenuously, both individual men and entire regiments, as being under the eye of Titus; and everyone concluded that this day would begin his promotion if he fought bravely. The great encouragements the Jews had to act vigorously were fear for themselves and for the Temple, and the presence of their tyrant, who exhorted some, and beat and threatened others to act courageously. Now, it so happened that this fight, which began at 3 A.M., the ninth hour of the night, was at length not over before it passed the fifth hour of the day, 11 A.M.; so that it appeared this fight was for the most part a stationary one; and that, in the same place where the battle began, neither party could say that they had made the other to retire.

In the meantime, the rest of the Roman army, in seven days’ time, had overthrown some foundations of the tower Antonia, and had made a ready, broad way to the Temple. Then the legions came near the first court, the Court of the Gentiles, and began to raise their embankments; but not without great pains and difficulty, and particularly by being obliged to bring their materials from the distance of twelve and a half miles: one near the northwest corner of the inner Temple, the Court of Israel; another at the northern edifice between the two gates; another one at the western portico of the outer court of the Temple; and the other against its northern portico.

In the meantime, the Jews were so distressed by the battles, and the war now creeping closer to the holy house, that they cut off those limbs of the body which they deemed to be infected, to keep the disease from spreading farther; for it was they who set on fire the northwest portico, which was joined to the tower of Antonia, and after that broke off about nine and a half yards of that portico, and thus it was they who made a beginning in burning the sanctuary; and then, two days after that, on Saturday nineteen July A.D. 70, the Sabbath, the twenty-fourth day of the same month Panemus or Tammuz, the Romans set fire to the portico that joined to the other, when the fire went seven yards farther. The Jews, in like manner, cut off its roof, nor did they entirely stop what they were doing before the tower of Antonia was parted from the Temple, even when it was in their power to have stopped the fire; no, they lay still while the Temple was first set on fire, and deemed this spreading of the fire to be for their own advantage. However, the armies were still fighting one against another about the Temple; and the war was fought by continual sallies of single units one against another.

But now every day the rebels in the Temple openly strove to beat off the soldiers on the banks, and three days later, on Tuesday twenty-two July A.D. 70, the twenty-seventh day of the same month Panemus, or Tammuz, they filled that part of the western portico between the beams, and the Court of the Gentiles, and the roof under them, with dry materials, and with bitumen and pitch, and then retreated from that place as though they were tired with the pains they had taken; at this, many of the most impulsive and reckless Romans, carried away with violent passions, and uttering loud whoops and yells, followed hard after them as they were retreating, and applied ladders to the portico, and suddenly got up to it; but the more prudent soldiers, when they grasped this unaccountable retreat of the Jews, stood where they were. However, the portico was full of those who had gone up the ladders when the Jews set it all on fire: and as the flames suddenly burst out everywhere, the Romans who were not in danger were panic-stricken, as those in the midst of the danger were in utmost distress when they perceived themselves surrounded with flames; some threw themselves down backward into the city, and some down among their enemies in the Temple; many leaped down to their own men, breaking their legs and shattering, fracturing, the bones of their limbs; but a great number who were going to take these violent methods, were prevented from doing so by the fire; though some anticipated the fire by using their own swords on themselves. However, the fire was suddenly carried so far that it surrounded those who would have chosen to perish otherwise. Titus himself could only pity those who thus perished, even though, by gross insubordination, they had got up there without orders, and without permission of their commanders, since there was no way of giving them any relief. For he cried out openly to them, and leaped up, and exhorted those who were about him to do their utmost to relieve them; yet this was some comfort to those who were destroyed, that everyone might see that person grieve for whose sake they came to their end. So every one of them died cheerfully, carrying with him these words and this intention of Titus as a memorial monument. Some had retreated into the wall of the portico, which was broad, and were saved from the fire, but then were surrounded by the Jews; and although they resisted them for a long time, they were wounded by them, and at length all fell down dead. After the Jews had destroyed those that got up to it, they also cut off the rest of that portico from the Temple. Now this portico was burned as far as the tower that John had built in the war he had made against Simon, over the gates that led to the Xystus. But the next day the Romans burned the northern portico entirely, as far as the east portico, whose common angle was built over the Kidron valley, and joined to it; on this account the depth was frightful. And this was the state of the Temple at that time.

Now the number of those who perished by famine in the city was immense, and their miseries were unspeakable; for if even the shadow of a suggestion of any food appeared anywhere, a war began; the dearest friends fell to fighting one another, snatching from each other the most miserable supports of life. Nor would anyone believe that the dying had no food; but the robbers searched them as they were expiring, in case they had food concealed in their garments, and were only pretending to be dying: no, these robbers gaped with open mouths for want, and ran around stumbling and staggering like mad dogs, and reeling against the doors of the houses like drunken men; in their great desperation they rushed into the very same houses two or three times in one and the same day. Moreover, their hunger was so intolerable, that it forced them to chew everything, gathering and eating things that the most filthy animals would not touch; nor did they abstain from girdles and shoes, even gnawing the very leather they pulled off their shields: wisps of old hay became food for some; and some gathered up fibers, and sold a very small weight of them for four Attic drachmas.

And now I am going to relate a matter of fact, incredible, yet attested by multiple eyewitnesses, and horrible to hear.

A certain aristocratic woman named Mary, of the village Bethezub, eminent for her family and her wealth, who had fled away into Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, was besieged there at this time. Pierced with famine, and outraged against the robbers, who took everything she had, and always seizing every piece of food she got, and did not kill her even when she violently reproached them, decided to avenge herself on them; she spoke tenderly to her son, a child sucking at her breast, and then she slew him, and roasted him, and ate half of him, and kept the other half by her, concealed. The rebels presently came in, and smelling the aroma of roasted meat, they threatened to cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had prepared. She replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them; and then uncovered what was left of her son. They were seized with horror and astonishment, and stood dumbfounded; then she said to them, “This is my own son; and what has been done was my own doing! Come, eat of this food; for I have eaten of it myself! Do not pretend to be either more tender than a woman, or more compassionate than a mother; but if you are so scrupulous, and abominate this my sacrifice, since I have eaten half, let the rest be reserved for me also.”

After this, those men left trembling, being never so frightened at anything as this, and with some difficulty they left the rest of that meat to the mother. The whole city was immediately filled with the news of this horrible act; and while each laid before their own eyes this miserable case, they trembled, as if this unheard-of act had been done by themselves. So those thus distressed by the famine desired very much to die; and those already dead were esteemed happy, because they had not lived long enough to hear or see such miseries.

This sad instance was quickly told to the Romans; some of them could not believe it, and others pitied the distress the Jews were under; but this induced in many of them a hatred more than ordinary against the Jews; but Titus excused himself before God in this matter, and said that he had proposed peace and liberty to the Jews, as well as an oblivion of all their former insolent practices; but they, instead of concord had chosen sedition; instead of peace, war; and before satiety and abundance, a famine; that they had begun with their own hands to burn down that Temple, and therefore they deserved to eat such food as this; and said, “Men ought not to leave such a city upon the habitable earth to be seen by the sun, since it is they who still continue in a state of war against us, after they have undergone such miseries as these.”

As he said this he reflected on the desperate condition these men must be in; nor could he expect that such men could be brought to a sober mind, after they had endured those very sufferings, when in order to avoid them it was only probable that they might have repented; for they had voluntarily chosen to reduce their citizens to that extremity of desolation.

And now two of the legions had completed their embankments on Friday one August A.D. 70, the Day of Preparation, the eighth day of the month Lous or Loos, which is Av or Ab. So Titus ordered that the battering-rams should be brought and set against the western edifice of the inner Temple; for the firmest of all the other engines had already battered the wall for six days straight without making any impression on it; the vast size and strong connection of the stones had proved superior to the engine, and to the other battering-rams also. The workmen, despairing of all such attempts by engines and crowbars, and consumed with frustration, then brought their ladders to the porticoes. But when they had gotten up, the Jews fell on them and fought them, and at length got possession of these engines, and destroyed those who had gone up the ladders, while the rest were so intimidated by what those slain had suffered, that they retreated. When Titus perceived that his efforts to spare a foreign temple had resulted in the harm and killing of his soldiers, he gave orders to set the gates on fire.

And now the soldiers fired the gates, and the silver over them quickly carried the flames to the wood inside, and then it spread itself all of a sudden, and caught hold of the porticoes. This was Friday, the sixth day of the week, the Day of Preparation; the sun was going down, and the Sabbath was about to begin. The Jews, on seeing this fire all about them, their spirits together with their bodies sank, and they were so astonished, that they stood paralyzed as mute spectators only, watching the fire, without defending themselves or attempting to quench the flames. They did not grieve at the loss, but instead, as if the holy house itself were already on fire, they sharpened their passions against the Romans. This fire prevailed during that day and the next also, Friday and Saturday; for the soldiers were not able to burn together all the porticoes at one time, but only by sections.

The next day, Saturday two August, the Sabbath, on the ninth day of the month Lous or Loos, which is Av or Ab, Titus commanded part of his army to quench the fire, and to make a road for the easy marching up of the legions, while he himself gathered the commanders together; the principal six were: Tiberius Alexander, commander of the whole army; Sextus Cerealis the commander of the Legio quinta Alaudae, the Fifth Legion Larks; Larcius Lepidus, the commander of the Legio decima Fretensis, the Tenth Legion of the Sea Straits; Titus Frigius the commander of the Legio quinta decima Apollinaris, the Fifteenth Legion of Apollo; Eternius, leader of the two legions from Alexandria; and Marcus Antonius Julianus, procurator of Judea; and after these came all the rest of the procurators and tribunes, and Fronto, one of his Friends. Titus said that he was not in any case for burning down so vast a work, because this would harm the Romans themselves, and while it continued it would be an ornament to their government. Three of his generals boldly agreed with him: Fronto, Alexander, and Cerealis. When Titus had given orders to the commanders that the rest of their forces should lie still, but that they should make use of those who were most courageous in this attack, then this assembly was dissolved. So he commanded that those chosen men who were taken out of the cohorts should make their way through the ruins, and quench the fire.

Now it is true, that on this day, the Sabbath, the Jews were so weary, and so completely dismayed, that they refrained from any attacks; but on the next day, the first day of the week, Sunday three August, the tenth day of the month Av, they gathered their whole force together, and very boldly ran on those Romans who guarded the outer court of the Temple, through the east gate, and this about 7 A.M., the second hour of the day. These guards met the Jews’ attack with great bravery, and by covering themselves with their shields in front, like a wall, they drew their squadrons together, closing ranks; yet it was obvious that they could not stand very long, but would be crushed by the multitude of those who sallied out on them in the heat of their passion. However, Titus seeing from the tower of Antonia that this squadron was likely to give way, he sent some chosen cavalry to support them, and the Jews found themselves not able to withstand their assault; and with the slaughter of those in the forefront, many of the rest were put to flight; but as the Romans went off after them, the Jews turned back on them and fought them; and as those Romans came back on them, the Jews retreated again, up to about 11 A.M., the fifth hour of the day, when they were overcome, and shut themselves up in the inner court of the Temple.

Now a great number of false prophets were bribed by the tyrants then to impose on the people, who solemnly announced that they should wait for deliverance from God: this was to keep them from deserting, and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such expectations. For a false prophet had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get up upon the Temple, and that there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance.

So Titus retired to the tower Antonia, and resolved to storm the Temple the next day, early in the morning, with his whole army, and to encamp round about the holy house, and afterward to capture the rest of the city. Much of the upper and lower city still remained to be taken, the last wall of Jerusalem, all of the houses, the great towers of Herod, the hidden places underground, the caverns, and the tyrants. But God had long ago with certainty doomed the Temple to the fire, and now that fatal day had already come; it was still Sunday three August A.D. 70, the tenth day of the month Lous or Loos, which is Av or Ab, the same day on which it was formerly burned by the king of Babylon, although these flames now took their rise from the Jews themselves, as their cause; for when Titus retired, the rebels lay still for a little while, and then attacked the Romans again, when those who guarded the holy house fought with those who quenched the fire burning in the inner court of the Temple; but these Romans put the Jews to flight, and proceeded as far as the holy house itself; and one of the soldiers, without waiting for any orders, and without any concern or dread for so great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched some of the materials that were on fire, and being lifted by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through which there was a passage to the rooms that were round about the holy house on the north side.

As the flames shot upward the Jews made a great clamor, and ran together to prevent it, not sparing their lives or allowing anything to restrain their force, since that holy house was perishing, for whose sake they kept such a guard about it.

Someone came running to Titus and told him of this fire as he was resting himself in his tent after the last battle; he rose in great haste and ran as he was to the holy house, to put a stop to the fire; all his commanders followed after him, and after them the several legions in great astonishment; so a great clamor and tumult naturally arose, from the disordered moving of so great an army. Then Titus, with a loud voice called to the soldiers who were fighting, and gave a signal to them with his right hand, and ordered them to quench the fire; but they did not hear what he said, though he spoke so loud, for their ears were already deafened by the greater noise, which overwhelmed his words with sound; neither did they pay any attention to the signal he made with his hand, as some of them were still distracted with fighting, and others with passion; but as they were crowding into the Temple together, many were trampled, while a great number fell among the ruins of the porticoes which were still hot and smoking, and were destroyed in the same miserable way as those they had conquered: and when they neared the holy house, they acted as if they did not so much as hear Titus’s orders to the contrary, but encouraged those before them to “set it on fire! set it on fire!” fully in accord with the words of the Seventy-fourth Psalm. As for the rebels, they were already in too great distress to assist in quenching the fire; they were everywhere slain, and everywhere beaten; and a great part of the people, weak and without arms, had their throats cut wherever they were caught. Now round about the altar lay dead bodies heaped one upon another; and the steps going up to the whole wide paved space about it ran with a great quantity of their blood, where the dead bodies slain above on the altar fell down.

And now, since Titus was unable in any way to restrain the enthusiastic fury of the soldiers, and the fire progressed more and more, he went into the holy place of the Temple and stood in the holy place with his commanders, and saw it, with what was in it, which he found to be far superior to what the accounts of foreigners reported, and not inferior to what the Jews themselves boasted of and believed about it; but as the flame had not yet reached its inward parts, but was still consuming the rooms about the holy house, and Titus supposing that the house itself might yet in fact be saved, he came back out in haste and endeavored to persuade the soldiers to quench the fire, and ordered Liberius the centurion, and one of the spearmen about him, to beat the soldiers who were obstinate with their staffs, and restrain them; yet their passions overwhelmed any regard they had for Titus and the dread they had of him who forbade them, as did their hatred of the Jews and a certain vehement inclination to fight them. Moreover, the expectation of plunder induced many to go on, with the assumption that all the places within were full of money, seeing that everything about the Temple was made of gold; and besides, one of those who went into the place with him, went ahead of Titus when he ran so hastily back out to restrain the soldiers, and threw the fire on the oiled hinges of the gate in the dark; and immediately the flame burst forth from within the holy house itself, as soon as the commanders retired, and Titus with them; and no one any longer forbade those outside to set fire to it; and so the holy house burned, leaving only the stones of the walls standing upright (stone does not burn, or turn to powdered ash).

So by Sunday three August A.D. 70, the tenth day of the month Lous, which is Av, the outer Temple court had been reached and, in the ensuing attack, while the holy house was on fire, everything was plundered, the cords, the cloths, the curtains, drapes and tapestries, the veil, and all captives butchered; ten thousand of those caught were slain without pity for age, or reverence for dignity; but children and old men, profane persons and priests, were all slain alike; so that this war made the rounds bringing all kinds of men to destruction, those who made supplication for their lives and those who defended themselves by fighting. The Temple was burned from the roof to the ground, the wood, the paneling, the silver and the gold, leaving only the stones of the walls and the form of its structure standing upright. The flame carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the groans of those slain; and because this hill was high, and the works at the Temple were very great, one would have thought the whole city was on fire. Nothing seemed greater or more terrible than this noise: a simultaneous combination of the shout of the Roman legions marching all together, and the sad clamor of the rebels now surrounded with fire and sword. The people also left above were beaten back on the enemy, under great dread, and made sad moans at their calamity; the multitude also in the city joined this outcry with those on the hill; and besides, many of those worn away by the famine, their mouths almost closed, when they saw the fire of the holy house, exerted their utmost strength, and broke into groans and outcries again: Perea, as well as the surrounding mountains also returned the echo, and augmented the force of the entire noise. Yet the misery itself was more terrible than this confusion; one would have thought the hill itself, on which the Temple stood, was seething hot, every part of it full of fire; that the quantity of blood was greater than the fire; and those slain more in number than those who slew them; for the ground could not be seen for all the dead bodies that lay on it; but the soldiers went over heaps of these bodies, as they forcibly ran down those who fled from them. And it was only now that the multitude of the robbers was expelled from the inner court of the Temple by the Romans, and with much commotion got into the outer court, and from there into the city, while the remainder of the populace fled into the portico of that outer court. Yet two priests eminent among them, Meirus the son of Belgas, and Joseph the son of Daleus, who might have saved themselves by deserting to the Romans, or might have borne up with courage and taken their fortune with the others, threw themselves into the fire, and were burned together with the holy house.

And now the Romans, judging it in vain to spare whatever was round about the holy house, burned all those places, the remains of the porticoes, and the gates, except the one on the east side, and the other on the south; which they burned afterward. They also burned the treasury chambers, after plundering them, in which were deposited an immense quantity of money, an immense number of garments, and other precious goods, and there that all the riches of the Jews were piled together, while the rich had built there vaults for themselves to contain such furnishings. The soldiers also came to the rest of the porticoes in the outer court of the Temple, where the women and children, and a great mixed multitude of the people had fled, in number about six thousand. But before Titus had made any determination about these people, or given the commanders any orders about them, the soldiers in their rage set the porticoes on fire; and some were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and some were burned in those porticoes themselves. Not one of them escaped with his life. For a false prophet had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get up upon the Temple, and that there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. A great number of false prophets were bribed by the tyrants then to impose on the people, who solemnly announced that they should wait for deliverance from God: this was to keep them from deserting, and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such expectations.

Thus the miserable people who had rejected their own true Prophet, Christ, though he had done so many signs before them, were readily persuaded by these deceivers, who had misrepresented God himself; while they did not heed those evident signs that had preceded the war, which had so plainly foretold their future desolation; but these men willfully misinterpreted some of these signs according to their own pleasure; and some of them they utterly despised, before their madness was made so plainly and undeniably evident, both by the taking of their city, and their own destruction. God sent on them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness might be condemned. But what most incited them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle, which was also found in their sacred writings, how, about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth:

“Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”

The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of their wise men deceived themselves in their determination of its meaning. Josephus says,

“Now, this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed governor in Judea.”

But he was mistaken, as Eusebius says,

“This prediction, he supposed, was fulfilled in Vespasian. He, however, did not obtain the sovereignty over the whole world, but only over the Romans. More justly, therefore, would it be referred to Christ, by whom it was said by the Father, ‘Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.’ Regarding whom, indeed, at this very time, ‘the sound of the holy Apostles went throughout all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world’.”

Josephus says,

“the rebels in Jerusalem of themselves did everything the besiegers could desire; for they never suffered from the Romans anything that was worse than they made each other suffer, nor was there any misery endured by the city resulting from these men’s actions that was new, but it was most of all unhappy before it was overthrown, while those who took it did it a greater kindness; for I venture to affirm that the rebellion destroyed the city, and the Romans destroyed the rebellion, which was a much harder thing to do than to destroy the walls; so that we may justly ascribe our misfortunes to our own people and the just vengeance taken on them to the Romans; as to this matter let every one determine by the actions on both sides.”

Now although anyone would be right in lamenting the destruction of such a work as this Temple, yet its fate had already been decreed, because they did not acknowledge the time of their visitation; for it was the same month and day in which the holy house was formerly burnt by the Babylonians.

The Lord did not choose the nation for the sake of the holy place, but the place for the sake of the nation. Therefore the place itself shared in the judgment that befell the whole nation.”
“They refused to hearken, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears that they might not hear. They made their hearts like adamant lest they should hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts. ‘As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear’, says the LORD of hosts, ‘and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known.’ Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.”

Now the number of years of this Temple, from its first foundation, laid by king Solomon, to its destruction in A.D. 70, the second year of the reign of Vespasian, are reckoned to be one thousand one hundred and thirty years and seven months and fifteen days, which is from 960 B.C. to A.D. 70; and from the second building of it by Haggai and Zechariah in the days of Zerubbabel in the second year of Cyrus the king, to its destruction under Vespasian, there were six hundred and thirty-nine years and forty-five days, which is from 570 B.C. to A.D. 70.

And now all the soldiers had such vast quantities of spoils gotten by plunder from the treasury chambers of the Temple, in which were deposited an immense quantity of money, an immense number of garments, and other precious goods, and there that all the riches of the Jews were piled together, while the rich had built there vaults for themselves to contain such furnishings, such vast quantities of spoils gotten by plunder that in Syria a pound weight of gold was sold for half its former value.

On the fifth day afterward, the priests starving with the famine came down, and when they were brought to Titus by the guards, they begged for their lives; but he replied, that the time of pardon was over for them; that this very holy house, on whose sole account they could rightly expect to be preserved, was destroyed; and that it was appropriate that the priests of the house should perish with the house. So he ordered them to be put to death.

And now, with the flight of the rebels out of the Temple area into the city, and the burning of the holy house itself, and of all the buildings round about it, the Romans brought their ensigns to the Temple, and set them by its eastern gate; and there they made Titus imperator. So great was the joy and attachment of the soldiers, that, in their congratulations, Titus was hailed as imperator by his troops; they unanimously saluted him by the title of Emperor with the greatest acclamations of joy; and there, in a final desecration of the Temple, sacrifice was made to the Roman standards in the Temple court. Finally, the Abomination of Desolation, according to the prophetic declaration, stood in the very Temple of God. In the end the Abomination of Desolation, declared by the prophets, was set up in the very Temple of God, so celebrated of old, when it was utterly destroyed by fire.

But this was not yet the end of the matter. Much of the upper and lower city still remained to be taken, the last wall of Jerusalem, all of the houses, the great towers of Herod, the hidden places underground, the caverns, and the tyrants. When the tyrants themselves, Simon and John, and those who were with them, found that they were encompassed and virtually walled round on every side without any method of escape, they desired to negotiate a treaty with Titus by word of mouth. Titus then came and placed himself on the western side of the outer court of the Temple, where there were gates above the Xystus, and a bridge connecting the upper city to the Temple which lay between Titus and the tyrants, and separated them and the multitude on either side, the uncircumsized Romans about Titus, and those of the Jewish nation about Simon and John; and he addressed the tyrants in a detailed discourse regarding their rejection of every one of his proposals, one by one; and he finished, saying, “And now, vile wretches, do you desire to negotiate a treaty with me by word of mouth? to what purpose is it that you would save such an holy house as this was, which is now destroyed? What preservation can you now desire after the destruction of your Temple? Yet you stand, still at this very time, in your armor; nor can you bring yourselves so much as to pretend to be supplicants, even in this your most utmost extremity! O miserable creatures! What is it you depend on? Are not your people dead? Is not your holy house gone? Is not your city in my power? And are not your own very lives in my hands? And do you still deem it a part of valor to die? However, I will not imitate your madness. If you throw down your arms, and deliver up your bodies to me, I grant you your lives; and I will act like a mild master of a family; what cannot be healed shall be punished, and the rest I will preserve for my own use.”

To this offer they replied that they could not accept it, because they had sworn never to do so; but desired leave to go through the wall that had been made about them, with their wives and children; they would go into the desert, and leave the city to him.

At this Titus had great indignation; that, when they were like men taken captive, they should pretend to make their own terms with him as if they were the conquerors! So he ordered this proclamation to be made: they should no longer come out to him as deserters, nor expect any further security; for henceforth he would spare no one, but fight them with his whole army; and that they must save themselves as well as they could: for he would henceforth treat them according to the laws of war.

So he issued orders to the soldiers to burn and plunder the city; who did nothing that day; but on the next day they set fire to the depository of the archives, to Acra, to the council house, and to the place called Ophlas; and the fire proceeded as far as the palace of queen Helena, in the middle of Acra: the lanes also were burned, as were those houses full of the dead bodies of those destroyed by famine.

And now the rebels rushed into the royal palace, where many of them had put their effects, because it was so strong, and drove the Romans away from it. They also slew all the people who had crowded into it, in number about eight thousand four hundred, and plundered them of what they had.

The next day the Romans drove the robbers out of the lower city, and set all on fire as far as Siloam. These soldiers were indeed glad to see the city destroyed, but missed the plunder, because the rebels had carried off all their effects and retreated into the upper city; for they were not yet at all repentant, but insolent, as if they had done well; for as they saw the city on fire, they put on joyful faces and appeared cheerful; as they said, in expectation of death to end their miseries. Since the people were now slain, the holy house burned, and the city on fire, there was nothing left for the enemy to do. Surrendering themselves was unthinkable, because of the oath they had taken, and they were not strong enough to fight any longer with the Romans on the square, being surrounded on all sides, like prisoners already; yet they were so used to killing people that they dispersed themselves outside the city, and lay in ambush among its ruins, to catch those who attempted to desert to the Romans; so, many deserters were caught, for they were too weak from lack of food to flee; and all were slain; and their dead bodies were thrown to the dogs.

Now every sort of death was thought more tolerable than the famine, so that, though the Jews now despaired of mercy, yet they would fly to the Romans, and also of their own accord themselves, willingly, would even fall among the murderous rebels. There was not any place in the city not entirely covered with dead bodies and full of the dead bodies of those who had been killed, who had perished either by the famine or the rebellion.

So now the last expectation which supported the tyrants, and that crew of robbers with them, lay in the caves and caverns underground; once they could fly there, they did not expect to be searched for, but were planning, that after the whole city was destroyed, and the Romans had gone away, they might come out again, and escape from them. This was no better than a dream; for they were not able to lie hidden from either God or the Romans. However, relying on these underground coverts, they set more places on fire than the Romans; and they killed without mercy those who fled into ditches when their houses were set on fire, and pillaged them also; and if they discovered anyone with food, they seized it and swallowed it down, along with their blood; no, they had now come to fighting one another about their plunder; and Josephus says he could only think that, if their destruction had not prevented it, their barbarity would have made them taste even the dead bodies themselves.

Now, when Titus perceived that the approach to the upper city was so steep that it could not possibly be taken without raising embankments against it, he divided the work among his army on Wednesday thirteen August A.D. 70, the twentieth day of the month Lous, which is Av. The four legions erected theirs on the west side of the city near the royal palace; the auxiliaries and the rest of the multitude with them erected theirs at the Xystus, reaching to the bridge and the tower of Simon which he had built as a citadel in his war against John.

At the same time the commanders of the Idumeans got together privately, and took counsel about surrendering themselves to the Romans; and sent five men to Titus, praying him to give them his right hand for their security. After some reluctance and delay, he gave them security for their lives, and sent the five men back; but as these Idumeans were preparing to march out, Simon perceived it, and immediately slew the five men who had gone to Titus, and put their commanders in prison; he had the Idumeans watched, and secured the walls with a more numerous garrison. Yet that garrison could not resist those who were deserting; for though a great number of them were slain, yet more escaped. These were all received by the Romans, because Titus himself failed to enforce his previous orders to kill them, and because even the soldiers grew weary of killing them, and because they expected to get some money by sparing them; for they left only the populace of Jerusalem, and sold the rest of the multitude, with their wives and children, every one of them at a very low price, because the number of those sold was so very immense, and the buyers very few; but of the populace more than forty thousand were saved, whom Titus let go, every one of them wherever he pleased.

It was at this time that one of the priests named Jesus, the son of Thebuthus, on being given security that he should be spared on the condition that he should deliver to Titus some of the precious things deposited in the lower vaults of the Temple, came out of it, and delivered from the wall a great many treasures, and not a few sacred ornaments of the Temple; two candlesticks like those in the holy house, with tables and cisterns, and vials, all made of solid gold, and heavy; veils and garments, with the precious stones, and a great number of other precious vessels for their sacred rites; the coats and girdings of the priests, with a great quantity of purple and scarlet stored for the veil; also a great deal of cinnamon and cassia, with a great quantity of other sweet spices, which used to be mixed and compounded together and offered as incense to God every day; all this, delivered to Titus, obtained from him for this man the same pardon he had allowed to those who had deserted of their own accord.

And now at Jerusalem the banks were finished in eighteen days’ time on Saturday thirty August A.D. 70, the Sabbath.

It was at this time also, on Saturday thirty August A.D. 70, in the Rhineland, after three months of bloody struggle, that the Batavian Revolt had finally been put down by forces under Petilius Cerialis, and the Batavian general Civilis was defeated. The Batavians were forced to rebuild their capital in a less defensible position, and a full Roman legion was stationed near the new Batavian capital at a newly built Roman fort just outside the capital, to guard against any further resistance. The Batavians were forced to give men and arms to the Roman Empire henceforth without interruption, as a levy, but no tribute or taxes was ever collected from them.

In Judea, on the same Saturday thirty August A.D. 70, the seventh day of the month Gorpieus, which is Elul, on the Sabbath, the Romans brought their machines against the last wall of Jerusalem; but for the rebels, some of them, despairing of saving the city, retired from the wall to the citadel; others went down into the subterranean vaults, though a great many of them still defended themselves against those who brought the engines for the battery; yet the Romans overcame them by their number and strength; and, principally, by going about their work cheerfully, while the Jews had become quite weak and dejected.

Now, as soon as a part of the wall was battered down, and some of the towers yielded to the impact of the battering-rams, those opposing them fled away, and such a terror, much greater than the occasion demanded, fell on the tyrants, that, before the enemy got over the breach, they were quite stunned, and were immediately for flying away; these men, so insolent and arrogant in their wicked practices before, were cast down and trembling; and such was the change made in those vile persons that they ran with great violence on the wall that encompassed them, intending to force away those who guarded it, and break through and get away; but when they saw that those who had formerly been faithful to them had gone away and fled wherever the great distress they were in persuaded them to flee, and those who came running before the rest told them that the western wall was entirely demolished, while others said the Romans had gotten in, and others that they were near, and looking for them, and now seeing only what was dictated by their fear and imagination, they fell on their faces, and greatly lamented their own mad conduct; and their nerves were so terribly unstrung, that they could not move or flee; and here one may chiefly reflect on the power God exercised on these wicked wretches, and on the good fortune of the Romans; for these tyrants now completely deprived themselves of the security they had in their own power; they roused themselves, and quickly came down from those very towers of their own accord, or rather, they were ejected out of them by God himself. So they now left these towers of themselves, towers in which they could never have been taken by force, nor by any other way than by famine, and fled immediately to that valley within the city under Siloam, where for a while they recovered from the dread they were in; and then ran violently against that part of the wall which lay on that side; but as their courage was too much depressed to make their attacks with sufficient force, and their power was now broken with fear and affliction, they were repulsed by the Roman guards; and dispersing themselves at distances from each other, they went down into the subterranean caverns. And thus the Romans, when they had taken such great pains against weaker walls, got by good fortune what they could never have gotten by their engines; for three of the towers were too strong for all mechanical engines whatever.

So the Romans, having now become masters of the walls, placed their ensigns upon the towers with joyful shouts for the victory they had gained, having found the end of this war much lighter than its beginning; for when they had gotten up on the last wall, without shedding any blood, they could hardly believe to be true what they found; but seeing no one to oppose them, they were uncertain what this unusual solitude meant. But when they went in numbers into the lanes of the city, with their swords drawn, they mercilessly slew those they overtook, and set fire to the houses where the Jews had fled, and burned every soul in them, and laid waste a great many of the rest; and when they had come to the houses to plunder them, they found whole families of dead men, and the upper rooms full of the dead corpses of those who had died by the famine, and then they stood in mute horror, and went out without touching anything. But although they had pity for these, who were not combatants, yet they had none for those still alive, but every one they met they ran through with the sword, and blocked the very lanes with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run down with blood, to such a degree that the flames in many of the houses were quenched with their blood. And though the slayers stopped at evening, yet it happened that the fire greatly prevailed in the night; and as all was burning, the dawn of that day came, that day of Sunday thirty-one August A.D. 70, the eighth day of the month Gorpieus, which is Elul; that day came upon Jerusalem, a city that had been liable to so many miseries during the siege, by producing such a generation of men who were the several occasions of its overthrow.

Of these men, Josephus says,

“It is impossible to go distinctly over every instance of these men’s iniquity, so justly punished by divine justice. I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly: — No other city ever suffered such miseries, nor did any age from the beginning of the world ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this one. Finally, bringing the Hebrew nation into contempt, that they themselves might appear less impious compared to strangers, they said that they were the slaves, the scum, and the spurious and abortive offspring of the nation—which was true!—while they overthrew the city themselves, and forced the Romans to gain a melancholy reputation, whether they would or no, by acting gloriously defiant against them, and almost drew that fire on the Temple, which they seemed to think came too slowly; indeed, when they saw the Temple burning from the upper city, they were neither troubled, nor did they shed any tears on account of it, yet these passions were discovered among the Romans themselves.”

Now, when Titus had come into this upper city, he admired not only other places of strength in it, but in particular those strong towers which the tyrants, in their mad conduct, had relinquished; for when he saw their solid height, and the largeness of their individual stones, and their exact joints, also how great their breadth, and extensive their length, he expressed himself this way: “We have certainly had God as our assistant in this war, and it was no other than God who ejected the Jews out of these fortifications; for what could the hands of men, or any machines, do toward overthrowing these towers!

At that time, he gave many such discourses to his Friends. To conclude, when he entirely demolished the rest of the city, and overthrew its wall, he left these towers as a monument of his good fortune, which had so tested his auxiliaries, and enabled him to take what could not otherwise have been taken by him; he also released those who had been bound and left in the prisons by the tyrants.

And now, since his soldiers were already quite tired with killing men, and yet there appeared to be a vast multitude remaining, still alive, Titus gave orders that they should kill none but those in arms who opposed them, but should take the rest alive. But, along with those they had orders to slay they slew the aged and the infirm; but those in their flourishing age, who might be useful, they drove together into the Temple, and shut them up within the wall of the Court of the Women; over which Titus set one of his freed men, and also Fronto, one of his own Friends, who was to determine everyone’s fate, according to their merits. So this Fronto slew all who had been rebels and robbers, who now betrayed and accused each other with harsh impeachments; but from the young men he chose the tallest and most beautiful, and reserved them for the triumph; the rest of the multitude over seventeen years of age, he put in bonds, and sent them to hard labor in the Egyptian mines. Titus also sent a great number into the provinces as a present, to be destroyed in the arena, by the sword and by wild beasts; but those under seventeen were sold as slaves, and the number of these alone was ninety thousand. Eleven thousand perished for want of food while Fronto was determining their fate; some without tasting any food, through the hatred their guards bore them; and others would not take any food when it was given. The multitude not imprisoned was also so very great, that they lacked even enough grain for their sustenance.

Now the number of those carried off captive during this whole war was estimated by Josephus at ninety-seven thousand; the number of those who perished during the whole siege was also eleven hundred thousand, that is, one million one hundred thousand, the greater part not belonging to the city itself but indeed of the same nation with the citizens of Jerusalem; for they had come up from all the country to the feast of Unleavened Bread, and were suddenly shut up by an army, which, from the start, caused such overcrowding among them that a destructive pestilence came upon them, and soon afterward a famine so severe that it destroyed them even more suddenly; so that the multitude of those who perished there exceeded all the destructions that either men or God ever brought on the world; for, to speak only of what was publicly known, the Romans slew some of them, some they carried off captive, and others they searched for underground, and when they found where they were, they broke up the ground and slew all they met. There were also over two thousand persons found dead there, slain partly by their own hands, and partly by one another, but mainly destroyed by the famine; but the stench of the dead bodies was so offensive to some, that they were forced to get away immediately, while others were so greedy of gain, that they would go in among the dead bodies lying in heaps, and tread on them; for a great deal of treasure was found in these caverns, and the expectation of gain made every way of getting it seem legitimate. Many also of those imprisoned by the two tyrants were now brought out; for they had continued their barbarous cruelty to the very end; yet God avenged himself on both of them, in ways wholly agreeable to justice. John, together with his brethren, desperately needing food in these caverns, now begged the Romans to give him their right hand for his security, which he had so often proudly rejected; but Simon struggled even harder with the distress that he was in, before he was forced finally to surrender himself: he was reserved for the triumph, and then was to be slain; and John was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, alive.

And thus was Jerusalem taken, in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, on Sunday thirty-one August A.D. 70, the eighth day of the month Gorpieus, which is Elul. Having taken over the crushing of the Judean revolt for his father Vespasian, who left and became Emperor, it was Titus who defeated the Jews and destroyed their Temple.

According to Tacitus Titus took the Temple, slaying seven of its defenders with the same number of arrows; and, according to Suetonius, Titus being left to finish the reduction of Judea, in the final assault of Jerusalem, managed to kill twelve of the garrison with successive arrows, and the city was captured on his daughter’s birthday.

And now, as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because none remained to be objects of their fury, for they would not have spared any, had any other such work remained to be done, Titus gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and Temple, for it still stood, the stones remaining upright, but they should leave standing the three most imposing towers, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamme, and that section of the wall enclosing the city on the west side. This western wall was spared to afford a camp for those who were to be placed in garrison; the towers were also spared, to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which Roman valor had subdued. There was not left of the Temple one stone upon another, that was not thrown down; and all of that ancient threshing floor was swept clean and left Desolate, where the chaff was blown away; and only the western wall of the outer foundation, which Herod had built to cover the face of the cliff below and outside of the Temple area, remained, and it remains to this day. When Titus finally gave them permission to sack and burn the city, he was merely giving his official approbation to what was going to happen anyway. And now, the Romans set fire to the most outlying extremities of the city, burned them down, and entirely demolished its walls; all the rest of the wall was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those who razed it to the foundation, that nothing was left to make those who came there believe it had ever been inhabited.

After the destruction of the city, Titus paraded his army, arrayed in military trappings and splendor, decorating and promoting and rewarding with booty those who had distinguished themselves, and thanking his soldiers in general for their courage and obedience, as he chose to call their conduct during the campaign, thereby consoling and encouraging them, and thus inspiring and securing their continued loyalty.

Jerusalem was finally demolished. After an obstinate defense by the Jews, that city, so much celebrated in the sacred writings, and the glorious Temple itself, the admiration of the world, was reduced to ashes; contrary to the will of Titus, who had exerted his utmost efforts to extinguish the flames. The word spoken by John the prophet was fulfilled which he spoke, saying,

“He will thoroughly purge his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire!

This was the end to which Jerusalem came, because of the madness of those who were for innovation in public affairs; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and mighty fame among all mankind. Upon her came all the righteous blood shed since the foundation of the world.

This all happened in accordance with the prophesies of Christ, who foresaw them by divine power, as if already present, and wept over them. Josephus says that the period from King David, who was the first of the Jews who reigned there, to this destruction under Titus, was one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine years, beginning 1109 B.C.; but from its first building as Jebus to this last destruction, was two thousand one hundred and seventy seven years, from 2107 B.C. to A.D. 70; yet neither its great antiquity, nor its vast riches, nor the spread of its nation over all the habitable earth, nor the greatness of the venerations paid to it on a religious account, were sufficient to save it from being destroyed. And thus ended the siege of Jerusalem.

This was indeed a great tribulation, a horrible distress, and there are many who say therefore that the Great Tribulation is past. But this Tribulation fell upon the Jews in Judea in Jerusalem for their sins, not on the whole face of the earth. These were only birth pains. Let no one deceive you in any way. The Lord himself has told us that the time of great Tribulation, that Day, like the siege of Jerusalem will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth.

“Those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell, and slew them, do you think that they were sinners more than all men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, No: but, unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish.
“Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcome with debauchery, and drunkenness, and cares of this life and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap; for thus it shall come upon all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that shall happen, and to stand before the Son of Man.
“What I say to you I say to all: Watch.”

Titus’s use of traditional Roman military tactics—defense walls, towers, catapults, and battering rams—in overtaking the city demonstrated that he was a capable, but not innovative, military leader. He was also greatly aided by the competence of Tiberius Alexander, his military advisor and former governor of Egypt, who was distinguished for his wisdom and loyalty. Titus had sometimes displayed a reckless interference, especially in the early stages of the siege, but these flaws were more due to inexperience than to military incompetence; he had underestimated the Jews and had not immediately erected a siege wall around Jerusalem. However, he also displayed remarkable energy in the field and the ability to inspire deep loyalty in his troops. As a result, Jerusalem was efficiently, if not brutally, overcome, and the large-scale campaign in Judea entrusted to Titus was effectively won, culminating in the capture and final destruction of Jerusalem in September of that year.

Indiscretion also played a part in his activities, particularly in his dalliance with Berenice. In Jerusalem, he had an affair with Berenice of Cilicia, the daughter of King Herod Agrippa the First, the thrice-married sister of Marcus Julius Herod Agrippa the Second, an Eastern monarch with a strong allegiance to Rome. Powerful, wealthy, and experienced in Eastern affairs, Berenice was a formidable match for Titus. Yet, as Cleopatra’s relationship with Marc Antony had earlier shown, involvement with an Eastern queen represented a threat to Roman stability that could not be tolerated. The Romans had memories of Cleopatra, and marriage to an Eastern queen was repugnant to public opinion. Marriage remained an impossibility.

Soon afterward Titus prepared to return to Rome, leaving to his successors the final operations after the campaign to root out remaining enemy forces or installations in Judea; and, on his quitting the province, with Titus there was cause for alarm when his victorious troops in Palestine, after his victory in Judea, urged him to take them with him to Italy; the soldiers would have detained him, earnestly begging him, and not without threats, either to stay, or take them all with him. There seems to have been some talk of the successful general revolting against his father; and it was suspected that they acted on his prompting. This occurrence gave rise to the suspicion that he was considering some sort of challenge to his father Vespasian, of his being engaged in a design to rebel, and claim for himself the government of the East; and the suspicion increased, when, on his way to Alexandria, he wore a diadem at the consecration of the ox Apis at Memphis; and, though he did it only in compliance with an ancient religious custom of that country, yet there were some who put a bad interpretation on it; but he returned alone.

Making, therefore, what haste he could into Italy, he arrived first at Rhegium, and sailing from there in a merchant ship to Puteoli, he went to Rome with all possible speed.

THE SIEGE AND DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.
Reading time approximately 3 hours.
(shorter than a football game or soccer match, or a brief novel or stage play)

See Images of the model of Jerusalem at the Jerusalem Hotel - and - Map of the Siege of Jerusalem

This chapter is the twelfth part of a sixteen-part summary of the intervening years between the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul under Nero and the writing of the New Testament works of the Epistle of Jude, the Book of Revelation and the Letters of John the Apostle. Sources are linked below.

Historians and Bible scholars disagree on the precise dates of the intervening years. But in general they do agree that the entire historical period extends from about A.D. 67 through 90.
The summary of the intervening years continues in the next five chapters Fifty-eight through Sixty-two. The concluding chapters Sixty-one, Sixty-two, and Sixty-three of this Harmony of the Gospel contain the First Letter of Clement and the Letter of Jude, and the Book of Revelation, and the Letters of John.
Note to the reader:
The text of this chapter is a redaction of the informative sources listed and linked below, rearranged, chronologically sequenced, collated, condensed, combined and adapted, while seeking to preserve much of their expressive language, and in some instances updating and improving both their translations and the written copy. Parallel constructions and duplications in the text have been kept to a minimum as far as possible without loss of information.

Ecclesiastical History III, chapters 5–8
Wars 4.11.5–7.11.5 [Book 4:659–663; Books 5 and 6; Book 7:1 [1-4] ]
Twelve Caesars: Titus 8–11

The Twelve Caesars: Divus Vespasian
The Histories: Book IV (January - November, A.D. 70)
Vespasian: Roman Emperor (britannica.com)
Vespasian (roman-emperors.org)

The Twelve Caesars: Divus Titus
The Histories: Book V (A.D. 70)
Titus: Roman Emperor (britannica.com)
Titus (roman-emperors.org)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXIV (penelope.uchicago.edu)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXV (penelope.uchicago.edu)

War, Book 4 (biblestudytools.com)
War, Book 5 (biblestudytools.com)
War, Book 6 (biblestudytools.com)
War, Book 7 (biblestudytools.com)

Compare
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multiple versions of any verse
multiple commentaries any passage
interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English
Bible maps (click initial letter of place name)
Bible Encyclopedias: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature (studylight.org)
Catholic Encyclopedia Catholic Online (catholic.org)
Hebrew Calendar Converter See exact equivalents of Gregorian Calendar dates.

—in Gregorian Calendar click the cursor in the day, month, or year fields, to highlight selection,
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Table of Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, in English translation, Joel Kalvesmaki 2013 (kalvesmaki.com)

List of 300 Septuagint Old Testament quotations in the New Testament, by Steve Rudd 2017 (bible.ca)

Table of LXX quotes and allusions in the New Testament


Church History (Eusebius): The Ecclesiastical History Of Eusebius Pamphilus: Bishop Of Caesarea, In Palestine (newadvent.org)

The Works of Flavius Josephus William Whiston, Translator, 1737 (sacred-texts.com)

Suetonius: Twelve Caesars: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by C. Suetonius Tranquilus; To which are added His Lives of the Grammarians, Rhetoricians, and Poets. The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D., Revised and corrected by T. Forester, Esq., A.M. (Gutenberg.org)

Tacitus: The Annals, Written 109 A.C.E. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
Tacitus: The Histories, Written 109 A.C.E. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (A.D. 69 through 70)

Sextus Aurelius Victor: Epitome De Caesaribus (roman-emperors.org)

Eutropius: Breviarium - Eutropius's Abridgement of Roman History (tertullian.org)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome (penelope.uchicago.edu)

Early Christian Writings A.D. 30 through 380 (earlychristianwritings.com)
See Biblical Canon and Apocrypha.


See these Conservapedia articles:
Vespasian, Titus, Domitian.

See the following resources:

Titus' Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE) (livius.org)

First Jewish-Roman War: Siege of Jerusalem, J. E. Lendon, associate professor of history at the University of Virginia. (historynet.com)

Josephus: The Essential Writings A Condensation of Jewish Antiquities and The Jewish War, Translated and Edited by Paul L. Maier, © 1988, Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel, Inc. P.O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501
Eusebius—The Church History: A New Translation with Commentary, Copyright © 1999 by Paul Maier, Published by Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel Inc., P.O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501


"he chose six hundred select horsemen … and assaulted the Jews on their flank with the select troops who were with him"

"select": in modern military terminology, "elite". These are elite combat forces, mounted cavalry and infantry troops, the Roman equivalent of specially trained expert "special forces" warriors, held in special esteem by the ranks of the Roman legions, those who were recognized for their outstanding combat skills and abilities by their commanders.

"a place called Scopus"

From the Greek σκοπος, skopos.
This word means "broad view, lookout, watch(-point), or prospect".

"Eleazar, the son of Simon, appeared very angry at John's insolent attempts every day against the people...he who first separated the Zealots from the people, and made them retire into the temple"

Wars 5.1.2 [5]
See Eleazar (jewishencyclopedia.com)
4. Son of Ananias the high priest who refused the offerings of the Gentiles
6. Leader of the Zealots, in the war against the Romans, who would not submit to John of Gischala

"Titus ordered a camp to be fortified"

He ordered defensive fortifications be erected. Wars 5.2.3 [68]
Fortifications are defensive works. Field fortifications were frequently trenches surmounted by protective barriers, either natural or constructed, or were constructed protective barriers only, set up for defense against attack; to "fortify" is to provide with defensive works, to strengthen against attack. See the following sources:

"thinking that the Jews would not have dared to make a sally on them"

Wars 5.2.4 [76]
A sally is a rushing forth, also called a sortie, as of troops against besiegers. The word comes from the Middle French saillie, "a rushing forth," from the Latin salire, "to leap."
See also sally (thefreedictionary.com)

"And now, with the approach of the setting of the sun on Thursday evening, on the preparation of the Feast of Unleavened Bread which now had come"

The "first day of Unleavened Bread" had arrived.
The period of preparation for the Passover, when the lambs were slain in the temple, was from midafternoon to an hour before sunset, during the period of the approaching setting of the sun: 3 P.M. to 5 P.M.. This preparation time was regarded as an integral part of the day to come at sunset, which allowed the work of preparation to be done without violation of the ritual prohibition of work on the holy day. No work was done after the setting of the sun with the beginning of the Pasch, not even the opening of the doors of the temple. It was during the preparation period before the going down of the sun that Simon opened the doors of the temple. The Passover of A.D. 70 was on Friday that year, beginning sunset Thursday through to sunset Friday.
See Matthew 26:17-20 and commentaries on Matthew 26:17.
From the account in Josephus, Wars 5.3.1 [99-103], it appears that the assassins sent by John of Gischala into the temple after Simon had opened the doors to admit those who desired to worship God (bringing their lambs for sacrifice), killed the worshipers trembling at the altar, and all the Zealots they could apprehend before they could escape into the subterranean caverns of the temple, at the time of the ritual killing of the lambs for the Passover, "mingling their blood with their sacrifices" (see Luke 13:1).

"the preparation of the eve of Friday eleven April A.D. 70, in the year A.M. 3830 of the Jewish Calendar"

"A.M." is an abbreviation of the Latin anno mundi, "the year of the world".
See Date of creation.
The Hebrew year 3830 corresponds to the Gregorian Calendar reckoning of anno domini 70, the "year of the Lord" 70, which is A.D. 70.
Thus, A.M. 3830 - 70 = A.M. 3760 = 1 B.C.
and A.M. 3761 = A.D. 1.
(A.D. 2001 = A.M. 5761 and A.D. 2033 = A.M. 5793.)
See Hebrew Calendar Converter

"in the lunar month Xanthicus, which is Nisan"

Wars 5.3.1 [99]
Josephus cites the names of the months of the Ancient Macedonian lunar calendar, with the corresponding names of the Hebrew lunar calendar (see correspondence of months of various ancient calendars (theos-sphragis.info):
Intercalary months are not listed here.

"Now when the siege started...about three hundred thousand who flocked from all parts of Judea"

—Eusebius, citing the words of Josephus, Ecclesiastical History Book III, Chapter 5.
Various sources listed above, with links, give differing totals of the number of pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover, apart from the number of the residents: half a million, six hundred thousand, three hundred thousand (Livius, Lendon, Maier, et al).
Compare Wars 6.9.3 and 2.14.3 "three million".

"Josephus calculates ... a total sum of one million, one hundred and ninety-seven thousand Jews in Jerusalem at the time of the Passover."

Wars 6.9.3 [420]
Josephus gives the figures of 97,000 and "eleven hundred thousand" (1100 × 1000 = 1,100,000) at the end of his account of the siege of Jerusalem.
"Now the number of those that were carried captive during this whole war was collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was the number of those that perished during the whole siege eleven hundred thousand, the greater part of whom were indeed of the same nation [with the citizens of Jerusalem], but not belonging to the city itself".
The majority of these were fellow Jews, pilgrims, but not registered residents of Jerusalem.
These figures representing the number of Jews in Jerusalem at the time of Passover are presented chronologically in this Harmony at the beginning of the siege, when the city was surrounded by the armies of Titus, and they were all shut in.

"that in those very days in which they had inflicted sufferings upon the Savior and benefactor of all men, the Christ of God"

—Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History III, 5.
The Ecclesiastical History Of Eusebius Pamphilus: Bishop Of Caesarea, In Palestine, Translated by C.F.Cruse, 1874, George Bell and Sons, page 76.
The Passover of A.D. 70 fell on Friday beginning Thursday at sunset, the same day of the week on which Jesus was crucified, Thursday sunset evening to Friday sunset evening. The date of the Passover is reckoned according to the Jewish lunar calendar, 14 days after the sighting of the new moon, so that it does not always occur on the same annual date of the civil calendar or the same day of the week every year. From this fact the year and the days of the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus can be deduced as A.D. 33, Friday 1 April, Sunday 3 April, and Thursday 13 May.
The dates, and days of the week, of the first day of Unleavened Bread, the day of Passover, which correspond to the Gregorian Calendar years from A.D. 30 through 70, are as follows:
3 April 30 Wednesday
24 March 31 Monday
12 April 32 Monday
1 April 33 Friday †
26 March 34 Monday
9 April 35 Monday
28 March 36 Friday †
18 March 37 Wednesday
5 April 38 Monday
25 March 39 Friday †
13 April 40 Friday †
1 April 41 Monday
22 March 42 Saturday
10 April 43 Friday †
30 March 44 Wednesday
18 March 45 Saturday
6 April 46 Friday †
27 March 47 Wednesday
13 April 48 Monday
3 April 49 Saturday
23 March 50 Wednesday
12 April 51 Wednesday
1 April 52 Monday
21 March 53 Friday †
8 April 54 Wednesday
29 March 55 Monday
14 March 56 Friday †
4 April 57 Wednesday
25 March 58 Monday
14 April 59 Monday
2 April 60 Friday †
21 March 61 Monday
10 April 62 Monday
30 March 63 Friday †
19 March 64 Wednesday
6 April 65 Monday
26 March 66 Friday
15 April 67 Friday †
2 April 68 Monday
23 March 69 Saturday
11 April 70 Friday †

"For there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be."

This passage, as quoted by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History III, 7, is taken from Matthew 24:21 and is seen by him in the context of Matthew 24:15-21; compare Mark 13:19 in the context of Mark 13:14-19.
See Josephus, Wars 6.9.4 "Accordingly the multitude of those that therein perished exceeded all the destructions that either men or God ever brought upon the world."
According to the combined historical accounts of both Josephus (Wars 6.6.1 [316]) and Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History III, 5), the "Abomination of Desolation" was set up in the temple at that time. Both historians refer directly to the ensigns or standards of the Roman legions which were set up and worshiped at the eastern gate of the temple, after it was burned' (the walls of stone still stood), and it was primarily burned by the Jews themselves under John of Gischala. Wars 6.2.9; 6.3.1; 6.4.2; 6.4.5 See Daniel 12:11.
John of Gischala has been proposed as the abomination of desolation, as the one man who, by setting himself up as a tyrant, and standing within the temple of Jerusalem and defiling it with outrageous sacrileges and bloodshed, perfectly fulfilled every identifying criterion set forth in the Bible except one, proclaiming himself to be God—the one man who, together with Simon son of Giora, filled the temple and the city with hundreds of thousands of rotting corpses piled up, dead from both avoidable famine and their own massive torturing, executing and slaughtering of Jews and foreigners who wished to surrender to the Romans—one million one hundred thousand dead.
Compare Wars 2.21.1-2; 4.2.1–4.3.2; 4.7.1; 5.9.3-4; 5.13.6; 6.1.1; 6.2.1; 6.6.2; 6.9.3 [420].
See Chapter Nine - The Abomination of Desolation, Lloyd Dale, The Last Days Revisited (lloyddale.com)
The texts in Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14 both refer to the "abomination of desolation", but only Matthew designates "the holy place", Mark says only indirectly, "where it ought not". According to Exodus 26:33-34 the holy place is separate from the most holy place (more commonly called "the holy of holies"). Jesus does not appear to be referring to the most holy place in his warning about the abomination of desolation, where the ark of the covenant was kept. (See also Exodus 26:34; 28:29, 35; 28:43; 31:11; 35:19; 38:24; 39:1; 39:41; Leviticus 6:16, 26-27, 30; 7:6; 10:13, 17-18; 14:13; 16:2-3, 16-17, 20, 23-24, 27, 33; 24:9; Numbers 18:10; 28:7; 1 Kings 6:16; 7:50; 8:6-10; 1 Chronicles 6:49; 23:32; 2 Chronicles 4:22; 5:7, 11; 29:5-7; 35:5; Ezra 9:8; Psalms 24:3; 28:2; 46:4; 68:17; Isaiah 57:15; Ezekiel 21:2; 41:4; 42:14; 44:13; 45:3; Acts 6:13; Hebrews 9:12, 24-25; compare Hebrews 12:18-24.
Cestius Gallus and the Roman army have been proposed as the abomination of desolation in the Holy Land (as the "holy place"). See
The Abomination of Desolation (Matthew 24:15-20) (Preached by David B. Curtis) (ecclesia.org)
David B. Curtis cites Chrysostom, Augustine, C. H. Spurgeon, and many other well-known theologians and Bible commentators from the 4th century to the present as a demonstration of the preterist view that the Great Tribulation, and the Abomination foretold by Daniel the prophet, were fully realized in the first century.
If Matthew 24:21 does in fact directly apply to the devastating siege and destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in A.D. 70 as Eusebius declares in his Church History, and only applies to that catastrophe—that it was unequalled in the history of the world, and absolutely will not be equaled or ever surpassed for all time to come —
then the Great Tribulation which many are now expecting to occur, just before the Second Coming of Christ in the future, cannot, and never will be, as intense, or as devastating in its totality, as the tribulation of A.D. 70: —as it is written: "not since the beginning of the world...no, nor ever shall be [again]".
Many theologians and scripture scholars over the centuries have shared and promoted this interpretation, that the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 was itself the Great Tribulation foretold by Christ, who also spoke of what was to happen "immediately after the tribulation of those days" (Matthew 24:22-31; Mark 13:20-28) signs which have recurred multiple times in history to the present day. Thus the darkening of sun, moon, stars, and the shaking of the powers of heaven is representative of the futility of astrology as a guide, the sign of seeing the Son coming on the clouds of heaven is representative of the dread of the final coming judgment in every age, and the sending out of the angels to gather his elect is representative of the sending out of missionary messengers to save souls by the Gospel. The words, "And then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven" are understood as referring to the missionary effort, "angels" being literally "messengers" of the Gospel (αγγλος agglos, anglos "angel" = "messenger"). Thus, according to this interpretation of the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 as the fulfillment of the Great Tribulation foretold by Christ—also after the occurrence of any number of subsequent and lesser periods of intense tribulation that may come or will come before the Parousia—the Gospel is preached to "all nations" to gather God's elect, and all that remains to be fulfilled is the Second Coming of Christ in glory, the Resurrection of the dead, and the Final Judgment.
See multiple translations of Matthew 24:21 and multiple commentaries on Matthew 24:21.
See also Revelation, Book of (historical exegesis): Vesuvius, and the Christian condemnation of sin. A great tribulation is sure to come, but according to this interpretation it will not be like the one in A.D. 70 which destroyed the temple and the city of Jerusalem. Compare Acts 14:22 and commentaries on Acts 14:22.
Conservative Christian Evangelicals and Fundamentalists repudiate such an interpretation, and reject it entirely as a false and misleading teaching designed to entrap believers into complacency and carelessness about the salvation of their souls (see Matthew 24:42; Mark 13:37), and see it as an example of how "in latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils" (1 Timothy 4:1 KJV; see Luke 21:34-36; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-10; and 2 Peter 3). The prayer to "escape these things" has been interpreted on one hand as prayer for the grace to be included in the Rapture to escape the devastating terrors of the Tribulation, and on the other as prayer for the grace of God for perseverance to escape both the snares of the devil by avoiding sin with its consequences of death for body and soul and the sin of despairing of God's help whenever devastating tragedy or catastrophe occurs resulting in bitterly turning against him (1 John 5:16; Hebrews 6:4-6).
See End Times and Great Apostasy.
The Catholic Church teaches that a final great tribulation will precede the Parousia. Catholic theologians do not specify, however, that it will be either greater or lesser than the tribulation of A.D. 70.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 675 says:
"Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. Cf. Lk 18:8; Mt 24:12"
See CCC 675, 676, 677 — see full text:
Catechism of the Catholic Church: Article 7 "FROM THENCE HE WILL COME AGAIN TO JUDGE THE LIVING AND THE DEAD" (paragraphs 668-677).
Compare the devastation of Jerusalem and the temple in the first century with the much larger 20th century devastation of cities, synagogues, churches, and the Holocaust of World War II. Seen in this context, the unequivocal statement of Eusebius in Book III, chapter 5, that "the Abomination of Desolation, according to the prophetic declaration, stood in the very temple of God", is taken as an accurate characterization of a single manifestation of a more pervasive and persistent, constantly recurring evil, "a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh", not limited to a single episode in the first century, but "the Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment" (CCC 675-676).
Hence, on this basis, what Eusebius stated is true: the Roman standards were the Abomination of Desolation: "finally, the abomination of desolation, according to the prophetic declaration, stood in the very temple of God" (boldface emphasis added)—Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, chapter 5. The temple had been burned, but had not yet been demolished, since stone does not burn; see Wars 6.6.1 and 7.1.1 which states that the Romans brought their ensigns to the temple and "set them over against its eastern gate"—compare Matthew 24:15.
Eusebius, by saying "in" the temple, represents the ensigns as set up inside the temple facing the eastern gate, as being inside "opposite the eastern gate", "over against the eastern gate", and displayed facing outward toward the people and the ruined city of Jerusalem from within the temple itself.
But this was not the end. "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken..." Matthew 24:29.
Compare 1 John 2:18 and commentaries regarding the coming of the Antichrist, already present in the first century, and still to come. Thus, what happened in the past, has happened many times, can happen even now, and will happen in the future. Compare Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and Osama Bin Laden. Every one of them, and every leader like them, has brought and will bring devastation, death and desolation. But none of these has stood in the temple of God.
According to this interpretation, the same abomination of desolation has manifested itself in Egypt under the Pharaohs, the Babylonian exile under Nebuchadnezzar II and his sons, the Maccabean period under Antiochus Epiphanes, and the first century siege and destruction of Jerusalem; in the persecutions of Christians by the god-emperor Domitian, Julian the Apostate, and others; in the conquests and devastations of Attila the Hun, the Vikings, Muhammad, and Genghis Khan; the persecutions and wars of religion provoked by the Protestant Reformation, the horror of the Guillotine during the Reign of Terror under Maximilien de Robespierre 1793-94; and in the twentieth century's Holocaust, Militant atheism, Abortion, Euthanasia, the Culture of death, and the war against western civilization by the terrorists of Wahhabism.
Eusebius says, "finally, the abomination of desolation, according to the prophetic declaration, stood in the very temple of God" (Ecclesiastical History, III, 5 boldface emphasis added.)
Some interpreters, against the assertion of the Christian historian Eusebius that the ensigns or standards of the Roman legions were brought into the precincts of the burned out temple of Jerusalem, and set up inside its eastern gate, instead hold that they were set up outside opposite its eastern gate (facing the temple in defiant victory), and therefore the ensigns or standards of the Roman legions as a sign of the abomination of desolation were not set up in the Temple, and therefore, the true abomination of desolation has never yet been set up in the holy place, but it will be, soon.
The literalist expectation of Evangelical Fundamentalism holds that the temple in Jerusalem must first be rebuilt on the original site, where now stands Islam's Dome of the Rock, and then the Great Apostasy will occur and the Antichrist will take over and sit within the holy of holies within it as the Abomination of Desolation and shewing himself to be God (see 2 Thessalonians 2:3 and 4.
The literalist expectation holds that Jesus absolutely cannot come again before the Temple in Jerusalem has been completely rebuilt by descendants of Aaron the high priest and Levites on the original site of the Temple Mount and consecrated for worship according to the ordinances of the law of Moses in the Torah (Third Temple).
See article Does The Temple Need To Be Rebuilt? (amazingfacts.org)
The Protestant Reformers of the 16th century instead saw the Church as the temple of God, and the Popes as the Abomination of Desolation standing in the holy place (the Catholic Church).
If the Catholic Church was not, and is not, and never has been, the holy temple of God, but from its beginning was and is the Harlot of Babylon, as Protestant Christian Evangelicals and Fundamentalists proclaim, "a dwelling place of demons, a haunt of every foul spirit" (Revelation 18:2-3)—
then the Popes could not be, and cannot be, and never were, standing in the holy place, but in an unholy place, not the holy temple of God.
If the Catholic Church was, and is, the body of Christ, the holy temple of God, and the Holy Spirit and Jesus himself have always been with the Church since the time of the apostles guiding "into all truth" (John 16:13) "forever" (John 14:16-17) through the leaders of the Church (Hebrews 13:17; Romans 13:1-7; 1 John 4:6; Luke 10:16), and the "gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18 KJV)—
then it remains "the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15), and therefore the Abomination of Desolation and the "man of sin" cannot, and never was, nor ever shall, be set up in its holy place (Ephesians 2:20-22; 5:25-27; 2 Timothy 2:13-14; article Apostolic succession). Compare Hebrews 12:18-24. With regard to Ephesians 5:25-27 and the other passages cited here, many critics both within and outside of Christianity, especially in recent decades, have pointed out that all churches and denominations, and each of them as a whole, do not in any case whatever entirely appear "in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish"—"there is none righteous, no not one". However, devout believers hold this reality as a hope, as a totally confident expectation, both now and for the future, and accept the reality that "the field will have weeds in it until the day of judgment" (Matthew 13:24-30), that the field itself being fertile is not faulty or worthless, that the owner and the cultivators are not wrong, that only the weeds are bad and that they will be removed at harvest time.
Therefore (according to this particular reasoning) the only possibility remaining is the holy place in the temple of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, in which stood Titus (later, as emperor, declared a god after his death), and within which was set up the idolatrous images of the ensigns of the Roman legions for pagan worship by the devastating Roman forces, the temple which was afterward demolished so that not one stone was left standing upon another, and the entire site of that ancient threshing floor had been totally cleared (2 Samuel 2:18-24; Matthew 3:12; Luke 3:17).
See the following:
Martin Luther: The Reformation View of Roman Catholicism (apprising.org)
End Times Deceptions: Pope Quotes Reveal They Are The Son Of Perdition (christianitybeliefs.org)
See also refutations of this view:
The Path of Truth: False Teacher - Martin Luther: Unleashing the Man of Sin (thepathoftruth.com)
Have Popes Really Claimed to be God? (geoffhorton.com) the author says "no", by demonstrating the argument that the Popes have been falsely misquoted and misrepresented.
The Plain Truth About Protestantism: The Errors of Protestantism (protestanterrors.com)
Note: Conservapedia cannot tell the reader what to believe. Every attempt has been made here to present in a balanced encyclopedic form all of the relevant information together with a representative spectrum of variant interpretations and their logical conclusions based on comparisons with scripture. Contradictions and consistencies of reasoning are not always self-evident, and historically there has never been a universal consensus on the meaning of every text of the Bible. The reader is invited to assess the above points of view and logical conclusions on their own merit, and to have recourse to authoritative and reliable sources of historical exegesis, and to reliable sources of verified authoritative interpretation according to authentic Christian doctrinal teaching authority.

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!...there will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down."

Matthew 23:25-38; 24:2b
This is an additional citation, oddly omitted by Eusebius, setting forth in context the whole cause of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, in which Jesus Christ himself declares the bloodguilt of the whole nation of the Jews, the cause for which he wept.
See multiple commentaries on Matthew 23:35 and Matthew 27:25.

"Recall also these words that he said, 'Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked...' "

Ezekiel 18:23-24
The Word of God through the Holy Spirit said these words through the prophet, before he was made flesh. Jesus said these words before his Incarnation.

"Now those at work covered themselves with hurdles spread over their embankments."

Wars 5.6.3 [269].
"embankments / banks": defensive earthworks, fortifications of wooden timbers, barriers, berms, banks of earth and timbers, temporary obstructions built against enemy attack, "siegeworks" constructed around a city or town as barriers against escape to compel surrender.
The older form "bank" in Whiston's translation of Josephus is here in this chapter alternated with the more modern synonym "embankment".
Hurdles here in the context of military action denote light, portable barriers designed to present an obstruction or shielding difficult to penetrate or remove, to prevent enemy access to siege engines and equipment.
Hurdles are usually moveable frameworks constructed of interwoven branches or sticks (with leaves), similar to heavy camouflage coverings set over tanks and artillery in the field; or temporary fencing or pens for animals, such as the large encircling thorn-brush barriers used by nomadic Middle Eastern shepherds as sheepfolds, as needed during migration over ranges of pasture land.
Paul L. Maier renders the word "hurdles" as "wicker-work screens" (Josephus: The Essential Writings, 1988, p. 340).

"Now, the stones were the weight of a talent, seventy-five to eighty-five pounds"

Wars 5.6.3
Some translations render talent as "hundred-weight" or "hundred pounds".
Compare Revelation 16:21 and commentaries with Wars 5.9.3-4; 5.10.1-5; 5.13.4-6.
See also Revelation, Book of (historical exegesis).

"THE SON COMES"

Wars 5.6.3 [272].
Both Greek and Latin text editions of Wars of the Jews from antiquity have this reading.
"Ha-eben" in Hebrew is "the stone", and "Ha-ben" is "the son". However, Josephus did not issue a Hebrew edition of this work, and both Greek and Latin manuscripts agree in the reading "the son comes".
There has been wide linguistic and theological scholarly speculation about the significance of these words in the text, including Jewish mockery of the public prophetic warnings of Christ about the coming judgment on Jerusalem, and unintended but ironically truthful prophetic utterances prompted by God and constantly repeated by the defenders on the wall (compare John 11:49-52 and Isaiah 62:6).
Josephus here, as a witness to the siege of Jerusalem, only reports what the defenders shouted, without offering any explanation of what they meant.
The shout may simply have been an example of Semitic word play, paronomasia, used by the defiant defenders of Jerusalem much in the same way that modern military personnel joke ironically about "incoming mail" as artillery fire and their references to "the Big Boy" as especially intimidating armor, and to particular pieces of large ordnance, or to firearms such as the .357 Magnum.
Paul L. Meier renders the text as, "SONNY'S COMING!" (Josephus: The Essential Writings p. 340).
Compare the parable Jesus spoke about how the king sent his son (as a form of intimidation) to the rebellious land tenants who killed his servants, saying, "They will respect my son." (Matthew 21:37). Thus the cultural reference may simply be the same as a phrase commonly used today among cheating and misbehaving employees in the offices, factories, fields and mines of a very rich and powerful man, when his most trusted chief overseer, his own son, comes unannounced for an inspection, "Watch out! Here comes the son!"
However, the simplest interpretation is most likely: that the "e" in "eben"—STONE—was not audible to the witness of the event, because of the noise and the distance to the wall, so that the defenders on the wall were shouting in Hebrew,
"THE STONE COMES!"—
"ha-EBEN COMES!"—
"ha-[e]BEN COMES"—
"ha-'_'BEN COMES"—
therefore "THE SON COMES!"—"ha-BEN COMES".
Josephus reported what he heard, and much has been made of it.

"reminded them...Antiochus Epiphanes, and Aristobulus and John Hyrcanus, and of Antigonus, Herod and Sossius"

Wars 5.9.4 [394-398]
Josephus is referring to the events related in the First and Second Books of Maccabees, and in his works The Antiquities of the Jews, Books 13, 14 and 18, and The Wars of the Jews, Books 1 and 2.

"our Legislator"

Wars 5.9.4 [401]
The Lawgiver, Moses. See Torah.

"they had fed themselves on the public miseries, and drunk the blood of the city."

Wars 5.10.4 [440].
"Drinking their blood and devouring their flesh" is a Semitic expression for abusive tyranny and oppression. This metaphor does not express a blessing or a reward for devoted service to the people, but applies only to those who do evil, who crush the people, and ruin lives.
This metaphor used by Josephus is also found in the Bible. Compare Psalm 14:4; Psalm 27:2; Proverbs 29:10; Isaiah 9:18-20; 49:26; Micah 3:3; 1 Peter 5:6-10; Revelation 16:6; John 6:53-54.
Bible readers who believe that Jesus was speaking only metaphorically, spiritually, or poetically, about eating his flesh and drinking his blood are thus faced with a contradiction: to figuratively, symbolically, metaphorically eat his flesh and drink his blood, to have eternal life and abide in him, would mean that one must revile Jesus, and do evil deeds, and be wicked toward him, to have eternal life and abide in him!
Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is food in fact, and my blood is drink in fact. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not that which the fathers ate, and died; he who eats this bread will live forever." John 6:52-58 (see the KJV translation of John 6:52-58: "eateth my flesh").
Strong's Concordance entry EATETH for John 6, verses 54, 56, 57, 58 is keyed to Strong's number 5176 τρώγω, trõgõ, to gnaw or chew, verb, present participle. This Greek word had and has no figurative, or metaphorical meaning. Greek linguists responding to the controversy raised over its usage in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John point out that there are no examples in extant Greek writings 500 B.C. through A.D. 1000, in either koine or ancient classical secular literature, in which this word has ever been used as a symbolic metaphor or figure of speech. Significantly, those Evangelical Christian apologists who in their articles and biblical commentaries on John 6:52-56 assert that trõgõ was often used as an ordinary metaphorical figure of speech at the time of Jesus cite no examples of Greek writing in which it appears as a symbolic metaphor.
John 6:52-58 is one of the biblical texts cited by Catholic, Orthodox, and some major Protestant churches regarding the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
See Real presence and Transubstantiation;
also Epistles of Ignatius: Quotations from Ignatius supporting transubstantiation A.D. 80-110.
Compare Hebrews 10:26-29 and 1 Corinthians 11:27; 10:16.
The following articles demonstrate the linguistic argument:
Ulrich Zwingli (On True and False Religion 1525) utterly rejected the Orthodox and Catholic belief in transubstantiation and the real presence, and insisted that Jesus was speaking metaphorically of having faith in him for salvation, being spiritually nourished by his grace alone, and that communion in the form of bread and wine is symbolic only. He was denounced by the Catholic Church as an heretic and was opposed by Martin Luther.
In full accord with the Zwinglian theology of the eucharist ("Zwinglianism"), many Protestant Churches firmly deny that Jesus was speaking literally when he said "He who eateth my flesh...".
Compare treatment of the Greek word τρώγων in multiple Bible commentaries on the following verses:
John 6:52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58.
Greek linguists claim there is no justification for the Protestant assertion that the word τρώγων is a symbolical figure of speech or a metaphorical term.
The word τρώγων is not aorist, but a present participle (see Interlinear Bible:
John 6:54,
John 6:56,
John 6:57,
John 6:58).
Those who falsely say it is aorist are either ignorant of Greek or are lying—they are misleading the reader and are not to be trusted (Jeremiah 8:8-9).
References for the Greek word τρώγωtrõgõ
  • # 5176 trogo: . . . through the idea of a crunching sound; to gnaw or chew” (Dictionary of the Greek Testament, By James Strong S.T.D. LL.D., p. 73)
  • trogo to nibble, to munch, to eat audibly, to crunch” (The Linguistic Key To The Greek New Testament by Fritz Reienecker, 1981,Vol. 1, p. 234)
  • trogo: . . . Originally "I Munch, I eat Audibly” (A Pocket Lexicon To The Greek New Testament, by Alexander Souter M.A., 1946, p.265)
  • trogo: . . A hole formed by gnawing, a mouse's hole” (An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, by Liddell and Scott, Oxford, impression of 1991, p. 822)
  • trogo: to gnaw, crunch, chew raw vegetables or fruits (as nuts, almonds)... in other writers of animals feeding;” (New Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament, By Joseph Henry Thayer D.D, 1979, p. 631)
The following article is helpful in understanding the meaning of some of the Greek linguistic terms used in various New Testament biblical commentaries:
Brief Definitions of Greek Grammatical Terms (freebiblecommentary.org)

"You shall not avenge yourselves. Vengeance is mine; I will repay."

See the following:
Romans 12:19
Hebrews 10:30-31
Leviticus 19:17-18
Deuteronomy 7:9-10 and 32:35-36
Matthew 5:38-48 and 6:14-15
Revelation 22:11.
Compare Isaiah 10 and 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10.

"Many sold what they had for one measure of wheat...of barley"

Wars 5.10.2 [427]
One measure of grain equals one dry quart, or four cups full.

"About the same time an alarming revolt in the Rhineland was broken by Vespasian’s cousin Petilius Cerialis."

See The Batavian Rebellion (allempires.com)
The particular events of the putting down of the Batavian Rebellion of Civilis in Germany in A.D. 70 from 7 June to 30 August under the Roman general Cerialis were concurrent with the siege of Jerusalem by Titus. See also
The Histories: Book IV (January - November, A.D. 70)
Quintus Petillius Cerialis (livius.org)
Who Was Petilius Cerialis? Nancy Jardine (randombitsoffascination.com)
Quintus Petillius Cerialis (revolvy.com)
Imperial General: The Remarkable Career of Petilius Cerealis (abebooks.com)

"Remember the words of Jesus, how he had said..."

Luke 21:20-22.
This text has been inserted in the appropriate place in the text as a demonstration that even when Titus had surrounded the city with armies, and was besieging it, the inhabitants were still able to depart for a time, and that those who did so escaped with their lives. Thus, it was not impossible, as some have imagined, for those inside the city to be able to obey the commandment of the Lord to depart when they saw Jerusalem surrounded by armies. Compare Jeremiah 38:2-3

"a medimnus of wheat was sold for a talent"

Wars 5.13.7 [571].
A medimnus equals one and a half bushels.
See Medimnus definition by Merriam-Webster
A talent of money equals 3000 shekels, or 60 minas, 76.5 lbs. of precious metal, either silver or gold (Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary 2003, "Coins" p. 315; "Weights and Measures" p. 1666).
The Bible mentions both talents of silver and talents of gold. 1 Kings 20:39; 2 Kings 5:22; 23:33; 1 Chronicles 29:4-7; 2 Chronicles 36:3.
Compare the famine text of 2 Kings 6:25.

"So the rebels supposed they had now slain the one man they most desired to kill"

Wars 5.13.3 [542]
Josephus, a Jewish general, and former prisoner of the Romans, who now supported them against the rebellious tyrants, was regarded by many Jews as the worst kind of turncoat traitor.
See The Life Of Flavius Josephus, from The Works of Flavius Josephus: Autobiography William Whiston, Translator, 1737 (sacred-texts.com)
Also Wars 2.20.3 through 3.8.8.

"gold in the city...so much that what sold for twenty-five Attic drams was now sold in the Roman camp for twelve"

Wars 5.13.4 [550]
The dram, alternative British spelling "drachm", is the Greek Attic drachma. See

"Arabians, with the Syrians, descendants of Ishmael and the Greeks"

Wars 5.13.4 [551]
These were motivated by more than greed for gold, but also by ancient religious and racial hatred of the Jews.
See Genesis 16; Genesis 25:19-34; Genesis 27; 2 Kings 17; Ezra 4; Nehemiah 4; Esther 3; Ezekiel 35; Obadiah; 1 Maccabees 1; Luke 9:53; John 4:9

"in reality it was God who had condemned the whole nation, and turned every course that was taken for their preservation to their destruction."

Wars 5.13.5 [559]
Compare
Deuteronomy 28:15-68;
Haggai 1;
the Book of Malachi.

"twelve of those men who were front guards keeping watch on the embankments"

Wars 6.1.7 [68].
Both Whiston and Thackeray translate "twelve".
Paul L. Maier says "twenty" men. "Two days later, twenty of the guards..." Josephus: The Essential Writings p. 353 (top of the page).

"The pit they had dug for others, they fell into themselves."

Psalm 57:6 adapted.
Compare Matthew 15:14.

"Titus was informed that, on that very day, that which is called the daily sacrifice had not been offered to God, for lack of men to offer it"

Wars 6.2.1 [94]
See Exodus 29:38-43; 30:1-8. The orthodox catholic Apostolic Fathers and the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers east and west anciently saw in this daily sacrifice of an unblemished lamb offered together with fine flour mixed with oil (a sign of the Holy Spirit) and a fourth of an hin of wine and the burning of fragrant incense a prophetic foreshadowing of the fulfillment of the sacrifices of the Law in the sacrifice of the Divine Liturgy and the Holy Mass with the burning of incense; that in the communal worship of God the Father with the accompaniment of incense during the liturgy of prayer and praise to God in the Assembly of the Church as the fruit of lips that acknowledge His Name, the eternal High Priest Christ Jesus daily unites the bread and wine to his one, unrepeatable, single sacrifice of Himself for the forgiveness of sins in his body and blood as the Lamb of God at the Last Supper, and on the Cross, the bread of the cereal offering and the cup of the wine, and gives to His people, as the Body of Christ, Himself as the bread of eternal life from the altar, which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat, that those who belong to Him might eat His flesh and drink His blood and partake of the divine nature and have eternal life (John 6:52-58; 2 Peter 1:3-4; 1 Corinthians 10:15-18; 11:27-29; Hebrews 13:10, 13:15; and incense Malachi 1:11-12; Revelation 8:3-4.
See Epistles of Ignatius.
Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians denounce this interpretation with horror as a pagan superstition and blasphemy, the deliberate intention of an empty ritual daily sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on an altar of sacrifice again and again "which can never take away sins", citing Hebrews 9:24–10:31 "And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins...For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified...there is no more any offering for sin";
also Hebrews 6:4-6 "they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame",
and add Isaiah 1:13 "incense is an abomination to me".
See Syncretism and Great Apostasy.
The fundamental (pun intended) rejection of sacramental theology is founded on the doctrine that God does not, did not, and never will, ordain and establish the use of any material or human means or rite of religion as a channel of bestowing the purely supernatural and immaterial power of the divine grace of salvation ex opere operato. For this reason baptism and the Lord's Supper are held to be Ordinances of the New Law as symbolic testimonies of salvation by faith alone in public witnessing, so that no ritual action by any human being can ever possibly bestow the saving grace that comes directly from God alone without any need for priestly intercession apart from the one mediation of Christ Jesus alone: mediation is defined as intercession and intercession is defined as mediation, so that there is only one God, and only one intercessor between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:1-6). In this view no difference whatever in any way is seen between the empty symbolic rituals of the Old Law performed by priests at the altar in the Tabernacle and Temple of Jerusalem which can never take away sins and the seven sacraments of Christian Orthodoxy and Catholic worship of God the Father as performed by Orthodox and Catholic priests at their altars in their churches. For this reason the word "priest" in Hebrews 10:11 is applied fundamentally by many Protestant Christians, pastors, apologists and teachers, to all priests, universally and indifferently, Jewish, Christian, Pagan, as to those who stand daily at their service of worship, "offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins", because on this doctrinal foundation of the Protestant Reformation they are viewed fundamentally as symbolic rituals only, or as magical formulas borrowed from paganism, having no spiritual power whatever to bestow any kind of divine grace or to bring souls to salvation in Christ alone by faith alone—"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast" Ephesians 2:9.
See Magic and The Two Babylons.
Compare Salvation: declarational salvation and ontological salvation

"he gave orders to attack the guard of the Temple about 3 A.M., the ninth hour of the night, the hour of the power of darkness"

Wars 6.2.5 [131]
(The following note is taken from footnote #292 of the article Literalist Bible chronology.)
Jesus was arrested at the "hour of darkness" Luke 22:53 (3 A.M.)
The hour of darkness is about 3 A.M. according to the ancient traditions of many cultures, the hour when most people die at night, when physiological human vitality temporarily ebbs, and when hostile military forces favor launching a sudden night attack.
See five distinct points of view sharing similar common ground on the time of the hour of darkness:
Titus had a practical military intuitive understanding of human physiology when the posted night watch guard of the enemy is least alert and most vulnerable. Also 3 A.M. was the traditional beginning of the fourth watch of the night, with the changing of the watch, when they would be most distracted. Both would have a tendency to mild drowsiness, one having just woke up, the other looking forward to sleep. (Woe to the guard whose relief came and found him asleep!) The Romans "did not find the guards asleep" as they had (hoped and) expected.

"carried away with violent passions, and uttering loud whoops and yells"

"loud whoops and yells" is chosen here as a more vivid, more colloquial, more colorful, and more dynamic modern adapted rendering of the phrase in the ordinary expression, "driven by ready passion, and uttering loud shouts and cries".

"Eternius, leader of the two legions from Alexandria"

The identity of the two legions from Alexandria is regarded by many as uncertain. Others say these were the III Cyrenaica, and the XXII Deiotariana also called XXII Fulminata, saying they are explicitly mentioned by Tacitus in the Histories Book 5, 1.
The translation of the Histories by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb designates the III Cyrenaica, and the XVIII Duodevigesima (also spelled XIIX Duodevigesima (the 18th Legion), instead of the 22nd (XXII) Deiotariana
—"and some men belonging to the 18th and 3rd, whom he had withdrawn from Alexandria."
See Roman Army Talk - Number of Legions under Vespasian 70 AD (romanarmytalk.com) variant opinions, discussion, disagreement on posting of XXII Legion at the Euphrates, or in Syria.
See List of Roman legions - Wikipedia

"Perea, as well as the surrounding mountains also returned the echo"

Wars 6.5.1 [274].
In New Testament times Perea was the territory east of the Jordan River, "beyond the Jordan" (peran tou Iordanou: Greek peran, beyond), with Galilee forming the Tetrarchy of Herod Antipas, about 25 miles from Jerusalem.
On rare occasions, when atmospheric conditions permit, sounds from Jerusalem can be heard on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea.
However, William Whiston, 1736, in his War 6.17b end-note 17 regarding Perea in Wars 6.5.1, expresses doubt that the region of Perea returned echoes of the tremendous combined sound of the roar of the burning of the temple, the cries of the people, and the shouts of the victorious legions. (The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume, New Updated Edition, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1987, p. 741.)
See Perea (biblicaltraining.org)
See Map of New Testament Israel showing Perea (bible-history.com)

"an ambiguous oracle, which was also found in their sacred writings, how, about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth."

Wars 6.6.4 [312]
This "ambiguous oracle" was not only an oracle outside of the sacred scriptures of the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible, but parallel to (and most probably based on) the text of Psalm 2:8, which Eusebius quotes, Book III, chapter 8, at the end of that chapter.

"'They refused to hearken, and turned a stubborn shoulder"

Zechariah 7:11-14.
A reminder of why the Lord destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, as applicable in the first century as it was in 587 B.C.
The LORD has four punishments that he brings on nations that oppose him:
See Jeremiah 15:2-3; 16:4; 21:9; 27:8, 13; 32:24; 38:2-3; 43:10-11;
Ezekiel 14:21; 38:21-22;
Revelation 6:2-8.
15 Verses about God's Activity Among the Nations (bible.knowing-jesus.com)

"in a final desecration of the Temple, sacrifice was made to the Roman standards.... Finally, the abomination of desolation ... stood in the very temple of God."

Wars 6.6.1 [316]; Ecclesiastical History III, 5).
According to scholars such as Siwart Haverkamp (1684-1742) and Tertullian (A.D. 160 - 225), almost the entire religion of the Roman camp consisted of worshipping the ensigns, in swearing by the ensigns, and in preferring the ensigns before all the other gods
—see online text Josephus Wars 6.6.1 scroll down to CHAPTER 6. HOW THE ROMANS CARRIED THEIR ENSIGNS TO THE TEMPLE... find and click on footnote [24]
—see also Havercamp - Apologeticus (1718) Tertullian.
The Roman Legion ensigns or standards were regarded as more than magical totems, similar to minor gods, or patron deities, or idols.
See the following link:

"To this offer they replied that they could not accept it, because they had sworn never to do so...Surrendering themselves was unthinkable, because of the oath they had taken"

Wars 6.6.3 [351] and 6.7.2 [366]
See Numbers 30:1-2 and :multiple commentaries on Numbers 30:2.
Compare Leviticus 19:11-12; Deuteronomy 23:21-23; 27:24-26; Matthew 5:33-37; 23:16-22; Hebrews 6:13-20; James 5:12.

"underground coverts"

Wars 6.7.3 [372]
Whiston translation: "underground subterfuges". These were subterranean concealments, hiding places, hideouts; not the same as catacombs or underground tombs, such as the hiding places of the early Christians where they gathered for worship during periods of Roman state persecution. The word "crypt" is from Greek κρύπτέ krupté hidden, a chamber or vault, especially one beneath a church, used as a place of burial.

"and sold the rest of the multitude, with their wives and children, and every one of them at a very low price" Wars 6.8.2 [384]—
—"he put them into bonds, and sent them to the Egyptian mines." Wars 6.9.2 [418]

See Deuteronomy 28:68; Ezekiel 19:4; Hosea 8:13.
Moses and the prophets warned the Jews that if they became obstinate in their idolatry and wickedness, they would be sold, and sent again into Egypt, for their punishment.

"and reserved them for the triumph"

Wars 6.9.2 [417]
The Roman triumph was a spectacular victory celebration parade held in the city of Rome for a military commander who had won an important victory on the battlefield, which included spoils of war, representative numbers of captives, slaves, and captured and defeated leaders (many of them executed afterward).
The triumph of Vespasian and his son Titus in A.D. 70 for their victory in Judea was notable for its ostentatious display of the riches from the temple at Jerusalem.
See Roman Triumph (ancient.eu)

"but those under seventeen were sold as slaves, and the number of these alone was ninety thousand"

Wars 6.9.2 [418] (EH III, 7)
This figure of "ninety thousand" is found in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Book III, Chapter 7. "Those under seventeen were carried away to be sold as slaves. Of these alone, there were upwards of ninety thousand." C. F. Cruse, p. 82 The Ecclesiastical History Of Eusebius Pamphilus: Bishop Of Caesarea, In Palestine London, George Bell and Sons, 1874.

"all of that ancient threshing floor was swept clean and left desolate, where the chaff was blown away"

Compare Matthew 3:12.
A threshing floor in general is a wide flat area open to the sky, usually in a windy location, where workers at harvest time winnow the grain by drawing threshing-sledges over the gathered sheaves, which have been spread out, which breaks the stalks, loosening the ears of grain, and then with winnowing baskets or winnowing forks toss the separated ears of grain into the air, allowing the wind to blow away the lighter chaff as the grains of wheat fall to the ground or into the basket. The chaff is gathered up and burned, while the grain is stored away.
The temple of God first built by Solomon was erected on the site of the threshing floor where David had first built an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings (2 Samuel 24:25). After the plague the LORD had inflicted on Israel for the sin that David had committed in numbering the people, the prophet Gad came to David and told him to build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite (2 Samuel 24:18), also called Ornan the Jebusite (1 Chronicles 21:18). After David had purchased the threshing floor from Araunah/Ornan—and the oxen also for an additional fifty shekels of silver—he dedicated it by vow to the LORD as the future site of the one holy temple of the living God (1 Chronicles 28:11-19). Now, in accordance with the Law of Moses, so that this site so wholly dedicated as a sacrifice to the LORD might not be burned and destroyed by being demolished, as a total offering to God, but redeemed intact to be dedicated to the worship of the LORD (see Leviticus 27:28-29 and commentaries), the priests evidently assessed the monetary equivalent of the religious and spiritual value of the site dedicated to so lofty and sacred a purpose above the value of all other material offerings that could be made out of all the possessions of the Israelites, and more particularly out of the possessions of him whom God had made king over all his people Israel and had prospered (see (Leviticus 27:16-25), and had pronounced its value at six hundred shekels of gold by weight (1 Chronicles 21:25). Having now purchased the site at its full value as ground to be dedicated entirely to the LORD, he gave what had now cost him such an enormously adjusted sum, representing its full worth as holy real estate, entirely to the LORD ("I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost me nothing" 2 Samuel 24:24; 1 Chronicles 21:4-25). David paid out six hundred shekels of gold for the threshing floor, and fifty shekels of silver for the oxen. If this is not a proper reading of the text, and this is not what actually happened, then a contradiction exists in the Bible.
Those textual critics who see a contradiction between the texts of 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles regarding the purchase of the threshing floor have not taken all facts into account. There is no actual contradiction in the inspired text, for God cannot contradict himself, nor is the value stated in 1 Chronicles necessarily an exaggeration based on an unrealistic symbolic or poetic expression solely designed to impress the reader with the importance of the site, but it may be simply instead an actual statement of fact. Honest textual critics who believe in the veracity of the sacred text in accordance with the literal sense of scripture are careful to point out that biblical researchers, scholars and readers should not be ready to say "I don't believe that!" before considering all of the available textual and historical evidence, and the fact that the Bible represents a culture, even a form of spirituality, very different from their own. What the Bible states as a fact is not in fact "absolutely impossible" or "highly improbable" simply because some cannot or will not accept it. The reader should always be ready to ask, "What is the factual basis for their assertion?" and "What is their motivation for making such assertions?" See Historical-critical method (Higher criticism).
After the temple was built by Solomon, the area of this threshing floor was expanded by constructing a wider platform around the temple, supported at the outer edges by layers of foundation stones. Herod, who rebuilt the second temple erected by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah after the return of the Jews from exile, had further expanded the whole area of the temple complex and erected magnificent stone foundations around the outer area of the temple mount, using stones cut into blocks so huge they are even today called Herodian stones. The Western Wall had never been part of the temple itself. The whole of the temple area atop the temple mount, Mount Moriah, was the threshing floor of the Lord.

"Upon her came all the righteous blood shed since the foundation of the world."

Compare Matthew 23:34-36; Luke 11:49-51.

"but from its first building as Jebus to this last destruction.... And thus ended the siege of Jerusalem."

Wars 6.9.10. [441-442] See 1 Chronicles 11:4-5.
"Jebus" The original name of Jerusalem, before David took it. Compare Judges 19:10.
See the following for textual content of Wars Book 4, chapter 10, through Book 7, chapter 1:
Access Wars Book IV Chapter 10
access Wars Book IV Chapter 11
access Wars Book V
access Wars Book VI
access Wars Book VII Chapter 1.

"he had underestimated the Jews and had failed to erect a siege wall around Jerusalem"

Titus had failed to immediately apply the stategy of Julius Caesar in the Siege of Alesia, 52 B.C.. Julius Caesar in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, his Commentaries on the Gallic War, describes his textbook use of the 18 kilometer investment lines of circumvallation and contravallation siege walls to defeat the Gauls under Vercingetorix at the Battle of Alesia, through all of September to 3 October 52 B.C.. The Siege of Alesia stands as a symbol of Roman determination and military proficiency. As the son of Vespasian and a Roman general it is unlikely that Titus was unaware of Caesar's wars and the effective use of siege walls in the Battle of Alesia. It may be that his very failure to immediately advert to and early apply the lesson of Caesar's victory over Vercingetorix was directly due to the power of God over his understanding, as a means of arranging, through the passionate reprisal of the Romans for the obstinately stubborn resistance and injury they suffered from the forces of the rebellious Jews in battle, the demolition of the temple and city of Jerusalem in the wrath of his judgment against them as decreed by Christ for their guilt for all the blood shed from righteous Abel to Zechariah the son of Barachiah, and the prophets, wise men and scribes sent to them whom they killed and crucified and scourged and pursued (Matthew 23:32); and to also punish for their own sins the legions of the Romans and their auxiliary forces, with repeated frustration, reversals and multitudes of casualties, before finally granting them success. (Compare Judges 19–21; 1 Samuel 4–6; Proverbs 21:1; Isaiah 10:5-19.)

"Marcus Julius Herod Agrippa the Second

Son of Agrippa I.
See Agrippa II (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

"consecration of the ox Apis at Memphis"

An Egyptian god of the harvest.
See Apis (ancientegyptonline.co.uk)

The events of A.D. 70 are not included in the Conservative Bible New Testament.

Fifty-eight

Chapter 58 Historical texts
Bible text

After the conquest of Jerusalem, tradition says that the Apostles and disciples of the Lord who were still alive gathered from everywhere together with those who were relatives of the Lord according to the flesh, for many of them were still alive. At this time, Linus was Episcopos of Rome. They all discussed together who ought to succeed James as Episcopos in Jerusalem; and they unanimously decided that Symeon, son of the Clopas mentioned in the Gospels, was worthy of the episcopal throne in Jerusalem; and by the blessing of the Lord, through the laying on of their hands, he was made Episcopos. It is said that he was a first cousin of the Savior, for the historian Hegesippus relates that Symeon’s father Clopas was the brother of Joseph the husband of Mary, the mother of the Lord.

In Rome Domitian was acting as Regent for his father Vespasian. During his father’s uprising against Vitellius in A.D. 69, he was in Rome, but he remained unharmed, though he was in the fighting there. And when his uncle Titus Flavius Sabinus, elder brother of Vespasian and city prefect of Rome, attempted to seize power from Vitellius on eighteen December A.D. 69, he was with Sabinus; and when Vitellius decided not to abdicate when his soldiers all cried out for him to stand fast, he went through the fighting on the Capitol complex. He managed to escape, but Sabinus was executed. Then, following the arrival of twenty thousand of his father’s troops led by Gaius Licinius Mucianus, the governor of Syria and ally of Vespasian, and after the execution of Vitellius, Domitian enjoyed the privilege of acting as Regent for a short time, beginning one January A.D. 70, the year 823 A.U.C in the Roman Calendar. The older Mucianus acted as Domitian’s junior colleague in this regency.

From his earliest years Domitian was consistently discourteous, of a forward, presumptuous disposition, and extravagant both in his words and actions. Even before Vespasian was acclaimed imperator, during the reign of Nero, when Caenis, his father’s concubine, on her return from Istria, offered him a kiss, as she had been accustomed to do, he imperiously presented her his hand to kiss. Again, later, being indignant that Vespasian’s brother’s son-in-law should be waited on by servants dressed in white, he exclaimed,

“Too many princes are not good.”
ouk agathon polykoiraniae.

On first succeeding to power, and calling to mind the verse of Virgil,

“Ere impious man, restrain’d from blood in vain,
Began to feast on flesh of bullocks slain—”
Impia quam caesis gens est epulata juvencis,

Domitian felt such an abhorrence for the shedding of blood that he planned to publish a proclamation, “to forbid the sacrifice of oxen,” before his father’s arrival in Rome. But the older Mucianus, acting as his colleague in this regency, carefully kept Domitian in check.

General Gaius Licinius Mucianus, after the victory over Vitellius, had drawn all power into his own hands. He alone was canvassed and courted, and he, surrounding himself with armed men, and bargaining for palaces and gardens, ceased not, with his magnificence, his proud bearing, and his guards, to grasp at the power, while he waived the titles of empire. Before Vespasian’s return, Mucianus reduced the Praetorian Guard, greatly enlarged by Vitellius, to approximately its former size; and the legions on the frontiers were regrouped to remove from dangerous positions those who had fought for Vitellius.

While Domitian enjoyed the privilege of acting as Regent, Mucianus held the real authority, with the exception that Domitian, either at the instigation of his friends, or his own whim, risked several acts of power. In an attempt to equal his brother Titus’s military exploits, Domitian was eager to seek glory in suppressing the revolt of rebels against the new regime in Germany and Gaul. But he was prevented by Mucianus. The general lawlessness with which he exploited his position as the emperor’s son clearly showed what might be expected of him later.

In late summer, about the end of September, early October A.D. 70, Vespasian returned to Rome from Alexandria.

Suetonius considered Vespasian to be the “savior that would come out of Judea,” setting forth his opinion in writing,

“An ancient superstition was current in the east that out of Judaea would come the rulers of the world. This prediction, as it later proved, referred to the Roman emperors, but the Jews, who read it as referring to themselves, rebelled.”

Thus, even the Romans acknowledged the Jewish belief of the time that a savior would arise from Judea.

Josephus also thought this was fulfilled in Vespasian; that this and other mysterious prophecies had pointed to Vespasian and Titus; but the common people of the Jews, in those days, blinded as usual by ambition, had interpreted these mighty destinies as referring to themselves, and they could not be brought to believe the truth even by disasters foretold to them by the true Christ who had divine knowledge of the judgment which fell on them. For Vespasian did not rule the whole world, but only that part of it subject to the Romans. With better right it could be applied to Christ, the Anointed, to whom the Father said,

“Ask of me, and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.”

And it was at that very time, indeed, that the voice of his holy apostles went throughout all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Vespasian himself clearly felt the need to legitimize his new reign with vigor. He accumulated acclamations and salutations from his armies, and he allowed Titus to share them with him. He carefully and zealously publicized the number of divine omens that predicted and portended his accession to the throne, and he built up the titles surrounding his name.

Suetonius relates that when Vespasian was made emperor, he remembered the following omens:

An ancient oak tree, sacred to Mars, growing on the Flavian estate near Rome, put out a shoot on each of the three occasions when his mother gave birth, and these clearly had a bearing on the child’s future. The first slim shoot withered quickly, and the eldest child, a girl, died within the year. The second shoot was long and healthy, promising good luck, but the third seemed more like a tree than a branch. Sabinus, the father, also is said to have been greatly impressed by an inspection of a sacrificial animal’s entrails by the augur and to have congratulated his mother on having a grandson who would become emperor. She roared with laughter and said, “Imagine your going soft in the head before your old mother does!

Later, during Vespasian’s aedileship, the emperor Gaius Caligula, furious because Vespasian had not kept the streets clean as was his duty, ordered some soldiers to load him with mud; they obeyed by stuffing into the fold of his senatorial toga as much as it could hold, an omen interpreted to mean that one day the soil of Italy would be neglected and trampled on as the result of civil war, but that Vespasian would protect it and take it to his bosom.

Then the incident in which a stray dog picked up a human hand at the crossroads, brought it into the room where Vespasian was breakfasting, and dropped it under the table; a hand, manus, signifying to the Romans the power that a husband has over a wife or a father over his children and slaves, as also the expression manus dei means the “hand of God”, and the representation of a hand on the Roman standard signifies the imperium, the right to command, and authority to use the force of the state to enforce its laws. (The dead hand of a decomposing corpse.)

On another occasion an ox shook off its plow-yoke, burst into Vespasian’s dining room, scattered the servants, and then, as if suddenly exhausted, fell at his feet and lowered its neck.

He also found a cypress tree lying uprooted on his grandmother’s farm, even though there had been no storm to account for it; yet the next day it had taken root again and was greener and stronger than ever.

In Achaia, Vespasian dreamed he and his family would begin to prosper from the moment Nero lost a tooth, and on the following day, while he was in the imperial quarters, a doctor entered and showed him one of Nero’s teeth which he had just extracted.

In Judea, Vespasian had consulted the pagan god of Carmel and was given a promise by the augurs that he would never be disappointed in what he planned or desired, however lofty his ambitions. Also, a distinguished Jewish prisoner of Vespasian’s, Josephus by name, insisted that he would soon be released by the very man who had now put him in fetters and who would then be emperor.

Reports of additional omens also came from Rome: Nero had seemingly been warned in a dream shortly before his death to take the sacred chariot of Jupiter Optimus Maximus from the Capitol to the Circus, calling at Vespasian’s house as he went. Soon after this, while Galba was on his way to the elections which gave him a second consulship, there was a report that a statue of Julius Caesar turned of its own accord to face east; and at Bedriacum, when the battle was about to begin, two eagles fought in full view of both armies, but a third appeared from the rising sun and drove off the victor.

And in Egypt, after entering the temple of Serapis alone to consult the auspices and discover how long he would last as emperor, and after offering many sacrifices, on turning to leave, Vespasian saw his freedman Basilides, whose name means king, and for a long time nearly crippled from rheumatism and moreover still far away from him, approaching and extending to him the customary branches, garlands and bread which were symbols of kingship in Hellenistic Egypt, and almost at once dispatches from Italy brought the news of the defeat of Vitellius at Cremona and his assassination at Rome; and still rather bewildered in his new role of emperor, though he felt a certain lack of authority and what might be called the divine spark, yet both these attributes, the authority and the feeling of divinity, were seemingly granted him. As he sat on the tribunal, two laborers, one blind, the other lame, approached together, begging to be healed. He was informed that the god Serapis had promised them in a dream that if Vespasian would graciously consent to merely spit on the blind man’s eyes and touch the lame man’s leg with his heel, both would be made well. Vespasian had so little faith in his curative powers that he showed great reluctance in doing as he was asked, but his Friends persuaded him to try them, and, moreover, in the presence of a large audience; and the charm apparently worked. At the same time, certain soothsayers said that they had felt inspired to excavate a sacred site at Tegea in Arcadia, where a hoard of very ancient vases was discovered, all painted with a striking effigy, or likeness, of Vespasian.

Vespasian in December also received by law from the Senate a number of powers for which his Julio-Claudian predecessors had not sought explicit Senate approval but had implicitly assumed and exercised anyway. Whether similar grants by law had been made to Galba, Otho, and Vitellius before him or were to be made to Vespasian’s successors after him is not now known; but a fragment of the empowering law survives, the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani, and it includes a provision that can be said to confer on him a naked autocracy, complete sovereignty: by law of the Senate he was now answerable to no one on earth.

Returning now to Rome, under these auspicious omens, and with a great reputation, at every opportunity he henceforth accumulated imperial salutations and multiple consulships.

Upon his arrival in Rome, Vespasian faced the daunting task of restoring a city and a government ravaged by the recent civil wars.

Helvidius Priscus, an advocate of senatorial independence and a critic of the Flavian regime from the start, was the only man who presumed to salute him on his return from Syria by his common name Vespasian, and, when he came to be praetor, omitted any mark of honor to him, or even any honorable mention of him in his edicts, yet Vespasian was not angry, and allowed him great leniency. Helvidius and his friends had already expressed general misgivings about Vespasian’s government in the early months of A.D. 70. With Helvidius Priscus may be associated a group accused of posing as stoic philosophers who were later expelled from Italy for voicing their public opinions of opposition.

Vespasian had some difficulty with his sons at the beginning of his reign.

First, Domitian had been overbearing and irresponsible in the months before his father’s return. General Gaius Licinius Mucianus, acting as Domitian’s colleague during his regency after the victory over Vitellius, had drawn all power into his own hands, and had carefully kept the eighteen-year-old Domitian’s juvenile impulsiveness in check. Among other things, Domitian had been eager to seek glory in suppressing the revolt of rebels against the new regime in Germany and Gaul in an attempt to equal his brother Titus’s military exploits. But Mucianus was able to prevent him.

With his son Titus, there was apparent cause for alarm when his troops, after his victory in Judea, asked him to take them to Italy; but he returned alone, and without Berenice. Making what haste he could into Italy, Titus arrived first at Rhegium, and sailing from there in a merchant ship to Puteoli, he went to Rome with all possible speed. But eventually he returned alone. Presenting himself unexpectedly to his father, he said, by way of contradicting the strange reports that had been raised concerning him, “I am come, father, I am come.”

Titus thus returned to Rome; and he triumphed jointly with Vespasian.

A man of great promise and reputation, Vespasian, on the occasion of his own return in Rome, now celebrated the whole of the Judean campaign with a triumph over the Jews; Vespasian, Titus and their soldiers in Rome celebrated, participating in a lavish joint triumph. Domitian also participated, riding a white horse behind his father and brother, who were gloriously arrayed in the imperial chariot ahead of him. They paraded through the streets of their capital in a beautiful procession, which culminated in the punishment of the Jewish leaders: Simon son of Giora was executed and John of Gischala was sentenced to life imprisonment. The sacred vessels, the Table on which the bread of God’s Presence, the Showbread, had been put, the Menorah, the curtain, the veil in the Temple which separated the holy of holies from the holy place, and all the other objects that no one except the high priest, descended from Aaron, of the tribe of Levi, son of Israel, was allowed to see, were carried through the Roman streets.

Vespasian was so little fond of external and superficially added adornments, that, on the day of his triumph, being quite fatigued with the length and tediousness of the procession, he could not resist saying that it served him right, for having in his old age been so silly as to desire a triumph; as if it had either been expected by himself or more rightly was due his ancestors. Nor would he for a long time accept the tribunician authority, or the title of pater patriae, Father of his Country. And in regard to the custom of searching those who came to salute him, he had already dropped it even in the time of the civil war.

During the four years of war against the Jews, the Romans had taken ninety-seven thousand prisoners. Thousands of them were forced to become gladiators and were killed in the arena, fighting wild animals or fellow gladiators. Some, who were known as criminals, were burned alive. Others were employed at Seleucia, where they were forced to dig a tunnel. But most of these prisoners were brought to Rome, where they were forced afterward to build the Forum of Peace, a park in the heart of Rome, and the Colosseum, the Flavian Amphitheatre. The Menorah and the Table of the Showbread were exhibited in the temple of Concord.

The boundless riches from the treasury of the Jerusalem Temple were used to strike coins with the words IUDAEA CAPTA, which is, “Judaea captive”. The basic design elements of the coins struck in Rome or in its Empire are a palm tree and a seated figure of a female as an allegorical representative of Judea in an attitude of mourning, sometimes also represented as dominated by a powerfully erected, standing figure of a Roman male wearing imperial armor. Any Roman would be reminded of the victory of their emperor. The Jews were forced to pay an additional tax, a poll-tax, or head tax, called fiscus Judaicus. Hegesippus also reports that after the conquest of Jerusalem, Vespasian ordered a search be made for all descendants of David so that no member of the royal house should be left among the Jews, which resulted in another great persecution of the Jews, and of Christians who were assumed to be a sect of the Jews.

Now, when Vespasian arrived in Rome to rule, it was made abundantly clear and evident to everyone that Titus was to be the imperial heir. Although Titus was not allowed an independent triumph, the joint celebration was deliberate, as Vespasian wished to waste no time in establishing an heir-apparent to the throne.

Now, Titus had no son. Hence, if he still failed to produce or adopt an heir, the throne would eventually fall to Domitian. But while Titus was meticulously groomed to be emperor, Domitian was never granted any position of authority nor allowed to win any military glory for himself. It appears he was not deemed fit by his father to hold power.

Because Domitian had been overbearing and irresponsible in the months before his father’s return, he was kept firmly in a junior position during the remaining years of Vespasian's reign, and that of his brother Titus. Domitian, therefore, dedicated himself to poetry and the arts instead, though it is thought he harbored much resentment at his treatment, firmly persuaded in his own mind that Vespasian and Titus had denied him what rightfully should have been his rightful place as the imperial colleague over his elder brother. From that time Titus constantly acted as a colleague with his father, and, indeed, as Regent of the empire.

More important to Vespasian than any legal enactment, however, was the recognition of his extralegal authority, auctoritas, and the prestige of what many powerful aristocratic Roman families regarded as his upstart house, a house suddenly risen from a humble position to one of importance, and in consequence persistently seen by the aristocracy, even if not actually presumptuous, as being insufferably arrogant in tone or conduct. He actively promoted the principle of dynastic succession, insisting that the emperorship would fall to his sons; for, he was so supremely confident in his own horoscope, and those of his family, that he dared to declare to the Senate that his sons would succeed him or no one would, and thus, throughout his reign he was insistent that his sons would succeed him, one after the other, Titus having no male issue to succeed him.

Vespasian also deified his dead daughter Flavia Domitilla with the title of divinity, Augusta. Long before he became emperor, after an earlier mistress called Caenis, who had been a freedwoman of Antonia, sister-in-law to the emperor Tiberius, he had married one Flavia Domitilla, who bore him Titus and Domitian and a daughter of the same name, Flavia Domitilla. But both his wife and daughter, Vespasian’s wife and daughter, had died before he became emperor. And after he attained to empire, during the latter part of his reign, the earlier mistress of Vespasian, his favorite, called Caenis, also died; but all during his reign he kept several mistresses.

At every opportunity he accumulated imperial salutations and multiple consulships. After enjoying a triumph for victories over the Jews, Vespasian added during his reign eight more consulships to his former one, the one he had already earned. His first consulship had been in A.D. 51; on becoming emperor, he again held the consulate in A.D. 70 and thereafter, for brief periods on each occasion, every year of his reign except two, A.D. 73 and 78, a total of eight; and he gave frequent consulates to his two sons, Titus and Domitian; and he made it his principal concern, during the whole of his government, first to restore order in the state, which had been almost ruined, and was in a tottering condition, and then to improve it; throughout his reign making it his principal business to shore up the foundations of the commonwealth, which were in a state of collapse, and then to embellish it artistically with public works and buildings of admirable beauty intended to impress on the people and foreign visitors the idea that Rome and her empire embodied the very essence of power, glory and wealth, and the excellence of moral, spiritual, cultural and civic virtues, the highest ideals and aspirations of mankind.

It was in the same spirit of stabilization that Vespasian turned to military affairs; and he also re-established discipline in the army.

The first task was to restore discipline to the armies after the events of 68 and 69. The troops, whose discipline had become slack either from the exultation of victory or the humiliation of defeat, had been indulging in all sorts of wild excesses; the soldiers, one part of them emboldened by victory, and the other smarting with the disgrace of their defeat, had abandoned themselves to every kind of licentiousness and insolent behavior. He therefore disbanded many of Vitellius’s soldiers, discharging and dismissing large numbers of them; and he punished others; and he was so far from granting any extraordinary favors to the sharers of his success, to his own troops, that he was slow or late in paying them the gratuities due to them by law, even the victory bonus to which they were entitled.

He missed no opportunity of tightening discipline:

That he might not let slip any opportunity of reforming the discipline of the army, by way of making an example, when a young man luxuriously reeking of too much perfume came to him to return thanks for having appointed him to command a squadron of cavalry, he turned away his head in disgust, and crushed him with this sharp reprimand, “I had rather that you had smelled of garlic,” and cancelled the order, revoking his commission, saying, “I should not have minded so much if it had been garlic.”

Another example:

When the men belonging to the fleet marine brigade, whose detachments were constantly on the march and travelled by turns of rotation between Ostia or Puteoli and Rome, petitioned for an addition to their pay by applying for a special shoe allowance under the name of shoe-money, Vespasian not only turned down the application, but, thinking it would serve little purpose to send them away without a reply, ordered them for the future to march and run barefoot, and so they did, and this has been their practice ever since.

His pagan contemporaries say that Vespasian was extremely covetous by nature, that his one serious failing was avarice, and the only thing deserving blame in his character was his love of money. On the other hand, some of them are of the opinion that he was urged to his rapacious policies by genuine necessity, and the extreme poverty of the state treasury, which he publicly noted in his addresses at the beginning of his reign. Although many particulars are missing, the Roman sources portray him as a ruler conscientiously committed to the methodical renewal of both city and empire.

While in Egypt he had been concerned with raising money; and his exorbitant taxations and extortions, coupled with sales of imperial estates to speculators, caused great discontent among the Egyptians. He now announced to the Senate that about three times the revenue of the empire was needed to restore the state, and both before and after his return to Rome he promoted his financial program.

His fiscal reforms and consolidation of the empire generated political stability and a vast Roman building program. During his reign he increased, and sometimes doubled, provincial taxation and revoked immunities granted to various Greek-speaking provinces and cities. He reclaimed public land in Italy from squatters and instituted various new taxes, including diverting into Rome’s treasury the tithing-tax paid by Jews of the Diaspora to the Temple at Jerusalem. While such measures were essential after the deficit incurred by Nero and the devastations of the civil wars, contemporary sources continued to charge Vespasian with avarice, a blood-sucking tyrant who devoured their substance. The measures he imposed are consistent with his characterization in the sources as both obdurate and avaricious. But such a charge is irrelevant to any emperor in the year 823 A.U.C., A.D. 70.

As for Rome itself, above all he resolved to rebuild the Capitol complex, burned in December of A.D. 69 by Vitellius, for Rome had become unsightly, since many buildings had burned or collapsed. Because the ruins of houses which had been burned long before were a great eyesore to the city, the emperor encouraged rebuilding on abandoned lots; he gave leave, to any one who would, to take possession of the vacant ground and build upon it, if the original owners failed to come forward, and the proprietors should hesitate to perform the work themselves. He personally inaugurated the restoration of the burned Capitol by being the first to put his hand to clearing the ground of the rubbish, and removed some of it by collecting the first basketful of rubble and carrying it on his own shoulder.

He restored the Capitol, and likewise began erecting several new buildings: a temple to Divus Claudius, the “deified Claudius”, on the Caelian Hill, begun by Agrippina but almost entirely demolished by Nero, a project designed to identify Vespasian as a legitimate heir to the Julio-Claudians, while distancing himself from Nero; he was able to build his Forum and the temple of Concord near the Forum, and to begin construction on the magnificent Flavian Amphitheatre in the center of the city, on finding that Augustus had projected such a work, located on the site of the lake over the foundations of Nero’s Golden House. After a colossal statue of Nero had been moved into it, it was called the Colosseum; and it was under Vespasian that construction on the Roman Colosseum was begun.

He likewise also undertook to replace and restore the three thousand bronze tablets which had been destroyed in the fire which consumed the Capitol, hunting high and low for copies of the inscriptions engraved on them. Those curious and ancient, beautifully phrased records contained the decrees of the Senate, from almost the first ancient building of the city, senatorial decrees as well as the acts of the people, plebis scita senatus consulta, “the people senate code”, which dealt with such matters as alliances, treaties and the privileges granted to individual persons, dating back almost to the foundation of Rome, traditionally 1 A.U.C., 753 B.C..

Claiming that he needed forty thousand million sesterces, forty billion, about three times the revenue of the empire, for these projects, and for others aimed at continuing the government and putting the state on more secure footing, Vespasian is also said to have revoked various imperial immunities, manipulated the supply of certain commodities to inflate their price, and increased provincial taxation. Not satisfied with reviving the duty-taxes which had been repealed in the time of Galba, he levied new and heavier taxes, increased the tribute of the provinces, and doubled that of some of them, and he likewise openly trafficked and engaged in business dealings which would have disgraced even a private citizen, buying great quantities of goods for the purpose of retailing them again at an inflated profit. As Suetonius claims, this is most likely true, because in financial matters Vespasian always put revenues to the best possible advantage, regardless of their source, and applied to the best purposes what he procured by bad means. However, the sum raised by Vespasian for public funds cannot be determined.

He made no scruple about extorting fees from candidates for public office, selling the great offices of the state, or selling pardons to persons under prosecution, whether they were innocent or guilty, and he is said to have deliberately advanced his greediest procurators to higher offices in which they could satisfactorily fatten their purses before he came down hard on them for extortion after they had acquired great wealth. He used them to oppressively soak up money like sponges, because it was his practice, according to the saying, to wet them when dry, only to squeeze them dry later when wet. The money went into the treasury, ostensibly to be used for state expenditures. Moreover, rumbles of internal dissension could be heard in the provinces too, and free cities, as well as certain of the subject kingdoms in alliance with Rome, were all in a disturbed state. He revoked the privilege of self-governance from Achaia, Lycia, Rhodes, Byzantium and Samos and deprived them of their liberties; and he reduced them to the form of provinces; the kingdoms of Thrace, also, and Cilicia, as well as Commagene, which before that time had been under the government of kings, he reduced to provincial status. He stationed legions as garrisons in Cappadocia on account of the frequent barbarian raids, and appointed a governor of consular rank, instead of a mere eques, a Roman knight.

Vespasian is said to have behaved most generously to all classes. We find the princeps offering financial interventions of support to senators not possessing the property qualifications of their rank, securing impoverished men of consular rank an annual pension of five hundred thousand sesterces; also rebuilding at government expense on a grander scale than before the many cities throughout the empire which had been burned or destroyed by earthquakes; and he entertained company constantly at his table, and put on lavish state dinners, often in great state and very sumptuously, to promote and assist the food trades.

In other matters the emperor displayed similar concern, proving himself a devoted patron of the arts and sciences by granting for the first time state salaries to teachers of Latin and Greek rhetoric. He granted to the Latin and Greek professors of rhetoric the yearly stipend of a hundred thousand sesterces each out of the state treasury. He also secured the financial freedom of superior poets and artists, and gave a noble gratuity to the restorer of the Coan of Venus, and to another artist who repaired the Colossus. He rewarded very handsomely, for his invention, someone who offered to convey some immense columns into the Capitol at a small expense by an ingeniously simple mechanical contrivance, but would not accept the service, saying, “Suffer me to find maintenance for the poor people.”

To enhance Roman economic and social life even further, he encouraged theatrical productions by building a new stage for the Theatre of Marcellus. In the games celebrated when the stage-scenery of the Theatre of Marcellus was repaired, he restored the old musical entertainments. He gave Apollinaris, the tragedian, four hundred thousand sesterces, and to Terpinus and Diodorus, the harpers, two hundred thousand; to some a hundred thousand; and the least amount he gave to any of the performers was forty thousand, besides many golden crowns. As in the Saturnalia he made presents to the men, which they were to carry away with them, so he did to the women on the Kalends of March; even so, he could not wipe off the odius reputation of his former stinginess. The Alexandrians constantly called him Cybiosactes; a name given to one of their most corrupt kings who was insatiably avaricious.

By his encouragement of science, he displayed a liberality without precedent under all the preceding emperors, since the time of Augustus. Pliny the Elder was now at the height of his reputation, for he was also a government minister in great favor with Vespasian; and it is probably owing to his advice that the emperor showed himself so much the patron of literary men. A writer mentioned frequently by Pliny, and who lived during this reign, was the general Licinius Mucianus, governor of Syria, a Roman eques, who treated the history and geography of the eastern countries, the same Licinius Mucianus who had dominated the regency of Domitian before the arrival of Vespasian in Rome. Juvenal, who had begun his Satires several years before, continued to vehemently condemn the flagrant vices of the times, lust and luxury, rooted in the pervasive licentiousness which had so long prevailed.

Vespasian restored the weakened and depleted ranks of the senatorial and equestrian orders, the senators and the knights, which had been greatly reduced by the havoc made among them at different times by frequent murders and fallen into disgrace because of persistent apathy, and reformed them by reviewing their memberships and replacing undesirables with the most eligible Italian and provincial candidates available. Having expelled the most unworthy, he chose in their places the most honorable persons in Italy and the provinces. And when some heated remarks passed between a senator and a Roman eques, to let it be known that these two orders, the senatorial and the equestrian, differed not so much in privileges as in dignity, he declared publicly that senators ought not to be treated with grossly offensive abuse at any time, unless they were the aggressors, and then it was fair and lawful to return it.

He reduced the enormous backlog of pending court cases at Rome. The business of the courts had overwhelmingly accumulated, partly from old lawsuits still undecided, because of interruptions in the course of justice during the recent civil wars, and partly from the increase of new suits arising from the disorders of the times. He therefore chose qualified members of the aristocracy by lot for a board of commissioners, to provide for restitution in the settlement of war-compensation claims for what had been seized by violence during the war; and others, he empowered with extraordinary jurisdiction, to make emergency decisions in cases belonging to the centumviri, the centumviral court, The Hundred Men, or more simply, the Hundred, thus greatly reducing the caseload to as small a number as possible, otherwise, the lives of the litigants could scarcely allow sufficient time for their disposition, and they would have been dead before they were summoned to appear.

He showed good-natured tolerance of offensiveness that could do no harm, but with opponents he considered dangerous or irreconcilable, he could be ruthless. Yet he felt little inclination to execute anyone whom he feared or suspected. He never rejoiced at the death of any man; no, he would shed tears, and sigh, at the just punishment of the guilty, grieving that they had chosen to do wrong. Suetonius’s researches showed him that it was scarcely found that so much as one innocent party ever suffered punishment during Vespasian’s reign, except without his knowledge or while he was absent from Rome, by deliberate defiance of his wishes, contrary to his inclination, or when he was imposed upon by misinforming him about the facts in the case.

A man of strict military discipline and simple tastes, Vespasian proved to be a conscientious and generally tolerant administrator. More importantly, following the upheavals of A.D. 68-69, his reign was welcome for its general tranquility and restoration of peace. The policies of his reign, though sensible, reveal no great imagination, compared with those of later emperors such as Trajan or Hadrian. Yet it was justly believed by his contemporaries that Vespasian had prevented the dissolution of the empire by putting an end to civil war, and that it was fitting that the Latin word pax, “civil peace”, should be a principle motif on his coinage. In Vespasian Rome found a leader who made no great breaks with tradition, yet his ability to rebuild the empire and especially his willingness to expand the composition of the governing class helped to establish a positive working model for those afterward who have been called the Five Good Emperors of the second century of the Christian Era. Tacitus, too, offers a generally favorable assessment, citing Vespasian as the first man to improve after becoming emperor.

He enjoyed a good state of health, though he used no other means to preserve it than repeated friction, as much as he could bear, on his neck and other parts of his body, in the ball-court attached to the baths, besides fasting one day in every month. He was physically broad and strong-limbed, and his features suggested a man in the act of straining himself, which is reflected in the rugged and uncompromising features of his portrait busts. When the emperor desired one of the city wits to say something droll about himself, the man facetiously answered, “I will, when you have finished relieving your bowels.”

He cultivated a bluff and even coarse manner, characteristic of the humble origins he liked to recall. This was popular, as also were his great capacity for hard work and the simplicity of his daily life, which was taken as a model by the contemporary aristocracy.

He was astute and ambitious, vigilant, active, and persevering, and he was untiring in the management of public affairs. From the beginning of his reign, he built up a powerful party quickly, and many of his initial appointments were dictated by nepotism or the desire to reward past services. After he became emperor, he used to rise in the winter very early, often before daybreak. Having read over his letters, and the briefs of all the departments of the government offices, he admitted his Friends; and while they were paying him their compliments, he would put on his own shoes, and dress himself with his own hands. Then, after dispatching the business brought before him, he rode out, and afterward retired to relax, reclining on his couch with one of his mistresses, for he kept several of them after the death of Caenis. Coming out of his private apartments, he went to the bath, and then entered the dining-room. He never seemed more good-humored and indulgent than at that time, and his attendants always seized that opportunity to ask a favor.

Vespasian was nearly always good-natured, making frequent jokes; in fact Roman contemporaries thought he was a man of considerable wit, although it often took a low and vulgar form, and he would sometimes use indecent language, like that addressed by crude, athletic youths to young girls about to be married. Yet there are some things related of him that Romans thought not lacking in cleverly inventive pleasantry. Once, being reminded by Mestrius Florus, that plaustra was a more proper expression than plostra, the next day he greeted him by the name of Flaurus instead of Florus. A certain lady pretending to be desperately in love with him, prevailed on him to admit her to his bed; and after he had gratified her desires, he gave her four hundred thousand sesterces. When his steward desired to know how he would have the sum entered in his accounts, he replied, “For Vespasian’s being seduced.”

He endured with great patience the freedom used by his Friends, the satirical allusions of advocates, and the petulance of philosophers. He was little disposed to keep up the memory of affronts or quarrels, nor did he harbor any resentment on account of them, but he showed good-natured tolerance of harmless offensiveness. Licinius Mucianus, who had been guilty of notorious acts of lewdness, who had managed Domitian’s regency, whom Pliny admired as a writer, and who, presuming on Vespasian’s great services, treated him very rudely, he reprimanded only in private; and when complaining of his conduct to a common friend of theirs, Vespasian concluded with these words, “However, I also am a man.”

Salvius Liberalis, in pleading the cause of a rich man under prosecution, on presuming to say, “What is it to Caesar, if Hipparchus possesses a hundred millions of sesterces?” he commended him for it.

When Demetrius, the Cynic philosopher, who had been sentenced to banishment, met him on the road, and refused to rise up or salute him, no, even snarling at him with offensively abusive language, he only said, “good dog”, calling him a cur.

In other affairs, from the beginning to the end of his government, he conducted himself with great moderation and clemency. He was so far from concealing the obscurity of his ancestry, that he frequently made mention of it himself. According to Suetonius, he was born in the hamlet of Falacrina, just beyond Reate, near where he used to spend his summers at a retreat on his country estates. When some affected to trace his pedigree to the founders of Reate, and a companion of Hercules, whose monument is still to be seen on the Salarian road, he laughed at them for it.

He arranged a very splendid marriage for the daughter of his enemy Vitellius, and gave her, besides, a suitable fortune and a carriage outfitted with horses, attendants and equipment.

In the time of Nero, in great consternation after he was forbidden access to the court, and asking those about him what he should do, or where he should go, one of those whose office it was to introduce people to the emperor, on thrusting him out, bid him go to Morbonia, to “Plagueville”. But when this same person came afterward to beg his pardon, he only vented his resentment by using nearly the same words to him.

He was so far from being influenced by suspicion or fear to seek the destruction of anyone, that, when his Friends advised him to beware of Metius Pomposianus, because it was commonly believed, on his horoscope being cast, that he was destined by fate to the empire, instead of doing away with him as a potential threat, he made him consul, thus promising for himself the security that now Pomposianus was deeply in debt to him, out of the gratitude he owed him for the benefit thus conferred.

By this time the Apostle Bartholomew had carried the Gospel through the most barbarous countries of the East, penetrating into the remoter Indies, baptizing neophytes and casting out demons. According to local tradition, the Gospel of Saint Matthew was taken to India by Saint Bartholomew. A copy of it was found in India by Saint Pantænus in the third century. Saint John Chrysostom said the Apostle also preached in Asia Minor with Saint Philip, and suffered there for the faith, but not mortally. Saint Bartholomew’s last mission was in Greater Armenia. There, in a place obstinately addicted to the worship of idols, about A.D. 71, he was crowned with a glorious martyrdom, condemned by the governor of Albanopolis to be crucified. The tradition that he was flayed alive as a part of his crucifixion, without any contradiction might very well have been the form of his death. This double punishment was in use not only in Egypt, but also among the Persians.

By A.D. 71, finally, the lengthy unrest in Gaul was forcibly put down. This sedition which had begun with Vindex in the last days of Nero’s reign, and, more recently in A.D. 69, had resurged with the attempted grassroots Gallic secession under Julius Civilis, commander of the Batavian auxiliaries, was successfully quelled under Vespasian’s generals, Licinius Mucianus and Petilius Cerealis, his cousin.

Meanwhile, Vespasian chiefly reacted with witticisms on the subject of his own shameful means of raising money, in order to wipe off the odium of it by some joke, and turn it into a ridiculous subject.

When one of his ministers, much in his favor, requested a stewardship for some person, under the pretense that he was his brother, he deferred granting his petition, in the meantime sending for the candidate; and having squeezed out of him as much money as he had previously agreed to give to his friend at court, he appointed him immediately to the office. When the minister soon afterward renewed his petition, Vespasian said, “You must find another brother; for the one you adopted is in truth mine.”

Once, during a journey, suspecting that his mule-driver had alighted to shoe his mules only in order to arrange an opportunity for allowing a person they met, who was engaged in a lawsuit, to speak to him, he asked him how much he got for shoeing his mules, and insisted on having a share of the profit.

When his son Titus blamed him for even laying a tax on stale urine, commonly used for bleaching cloth because of its ammonia, he held to his nose a piece of the money he received in the first instalment, and asked him if it stunk. And when he replied, “no”, he said, “And yet it is derived from urine.”

This whim of imposing a tax on urine, if true, is not considered by professional economists impressive evidence of either his talents as a financier, or the resources of the Roman empire.

When some deputies came to inform him that a large statue, which would cost a vast sum, was ordered to be erected for him at public expense, he told them to pay down immediately, holding out the hollow of his hand, and saying, “Here is a base, ready for the statue.”

These are but examples of his wit in the face of public criticism of a policy of graft to restore the state treasury, build monumental public works, and support the upper class elite, senators, teachers, writers and artists, at the expense of the provinces, the cities and the people, sucking them dry and eating up their income.

His son Titus was himself the beneficiary of considerable intelligence and talent, endowments carefully cultivated at every step of his career, from his early education to his role under his father’s principate. Titus also received tribunician power.

Tradition records that Titus was skilled as a forger. Taking on the care and inspection of all offices, he dictated letters, wrote proclamations in his father’s name, and solemnly delivered his speeches in the Senate in place of the quaestor, the magistrate in charge of the public treasury and expenditure.

Titus became virtually a partner in Vespasian’s rule, not only accumulating consulates and imperatorial salutations with his father but also, in being given command of the Praetorian Guard as prefect, was made Commander of the Praetorian Guard.

In A.D. 72, Titus, the son of Vespasian and chief commanding general credited with the destruction of Jerusalem, was appointed Praetorian prefect with responsibility for the army at Rome, a particularly important and lucrative post since military loyalty was indispensable to the success of the new regime. It seems clear that not only did Vespasian need a trusted colleague in this post but also one who would not hesitate to do his work for him by using unsavory methods of intimidation as his enforcer. Titus quickly assumed command of the Pretorian Guards, although no one but a Roman knight had ever been their prefect before; and being in charge of them we learn from Suetonius that he was “somewhat arrogant and tyrannical”, that he conducted himself with great haughtiness and violence; and, without scruple or delay, he got rid of all those suspicious characters whom he had most reason to suspect, after sending his emissaries unannounced into the theaters and camp, to demand, as if by the general consent of every loyal person there, and in their name, as though tried by popular pressure and not by trial, that the suspected persons should be delivered up to immediate punishment; and they were executed. By these acts, although Titus, son of the emperor, provided for his own future security, yet for the present he incurred the hatred of the people so much, that there was hardly anyone who ever came to the rule of empire with a more odious character, or more universally disliked, than Titus.

A certain amount of ill-repute can be expected for Vespasian’s Roman enforcer, but apart from the account of these acts, as related by the historian Suetonius, only a single instance of justice of this kind survives, making any further evaluation of Titus’s role difficult for the historian who with prejudice distrusts singular historical accounts by unimpeachably reputable sources not corroborated or duplicated by other sources as verification.

Besides his cruelty, Titus was suspected of giving way to habits of luxury, as he often prolonged his revels up to midnight with the most riotous revelers of his acquaintances. He was suspected of lewdness, because of the swarms of catamites and eunuchs about him and his well-known attachment to queen Berenice, who reportedly received from him a promise of marriage.

On the other hand, Titus is also portrayed during these years as a capable and diligent administrator who attended Senate meetings, requested advice, and generally mixed well with all parties. Yet the sources appear to offer no indication that he was ever considered a “co-ruler” with Vespasian.

After the dispersion of the Apostles during the persecution which arose after the martyrdom of Saint Stephen in Jerusalem, it is an established historical fact that Saint Thomas went to India, where he labored for the spread of the Gospel and the salvation of souls. The Roman Breviary states that he preached in Ethiopia and Abyssinia, as well as in Persia and Media. In Meliapour, which is also called Mylapore, before he died, he erected a very large cross. At the foot of this cross was a rock where Saint Thomas, while praying fervently, suffered his martyrdom by a blow from the lance of a pagan priest and died at Meliapour. Thomas the Apostle was killed by a spear in Mylapore, Madras, India in A.D. 72. This happened, according to the Roman Breviary, at Calamine, which is in fact Meliapour, for in the language of the people the word Calurmine means “on the rock (mina)”. The name was given the site in memory of the Apostle’s martyrdom. The descendants of his disciples in India are called Thomas Christians.

Vespasian, having been consul for the first time in A.D. 51, on becoming emperor again held the consulate in A.D. 70 and thereafter, for brief periods on each occasion, every year of his reign except two, A.D. 73 and 78, a total of eight consulships; and he gave frequent consulates to his two sons, Titus and Domitian; he also likewise in A.D. 73 assumed the censorship, the office of censor, head of the census and supervisor of public manners and morals. It was in 73 that Vespasian and Titus became censors; and Titus was his father’s colleague in the censorship of 73 and in several consulships afterward.

Vespasian made it his principal concern, during the whole of his government, first to restore order in the state, and then to improve it; throughout his reign making it his principal business to stabilize the foundations of the commonwealth, and then to embellish it artistically with public works and buildings of admirable beauty intended to impress on the people and foreign visitors the idea that Rome and her empire embodied the very essence of power, glory and wealth, and the excellence of moral, spiritual, cultural and civic virtues, the highest ideals and aspirations of mankind. However, the Romans in general and the imperial court did not share these ideals and aspirations, as Paul noted in his Letter to the Romans, written to the established Christian Assembly there.

The corrupted manners of the Romans had now grown to an enormous height of depravity, through the unbounded license of the times; and, to the honor of Vespasian, he discovered great zeal in his endeavors as censor to effect a national reformation of morals. He induced the Senate to enact specific measures to counteract the debauched and reckless style of living then in fashion. He obtained a decree of the Senate that any woman, who formed a union with the slave of another person, should also lose her freedom and be treated as a bondwoman herself, a slave; and that usurers should not be allowed to undertake legal proceedings for recovery of money loaned to youths while they lived with their father’s family, not even after their fathers were dead.

Although little is known about the details of their censorship, in the office of censor there are some suggestive indications that they probably carried out extensive reorganization of the provincial communities, including some of the taxation reforms. They bestowed Latin rights on all Spain, throughout the whole Iberian Peninsula, which meant that all city magistrates obtained Roman citizenship, bringing profit to the imperial treasury as a result; and there is no doubt that Roman citizenship was granted liberally elsewhere. In addition they recruited to the Roman Senate many new members, provincial as well as Italian; and this too brought in more profit.

With the Senate, Vespasian succeeded in maintaining friendly relations, despite the discords of the early months, and the open hostility of Senator Hevidius Priscus and his supporters. To the historian Tacitus, Vespasian was “the only emperor who had changed for the better.”

In the spring of A.D. 73, the final drama involving the Jews in Judea as related by Josephus reached its climax at the fortress of Masada, situated on a steep fourteen-hundred-foot prominence and besieged by the Legio decima Fretensis, the Tenth Legion of the Sea Straits, and several thousand auxiliaries under the command of Lucius Flavius Silva, the governor of Judea. This was the last phase of the so-called “mopping up” operation to root out remaining enemy forces or installations in Judea, after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Silva ordered the Tenth Legion Fretensis to build camps around the fortress, and to add siege walls. Over a period of months, in a massive engineering feat, the Romans built an enormous ramp to the walls of the fortress and winched up their siege engines. The end came in April, on the fifteenth day of the month Xanthicus, which is Nisan, on the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread, the day after the observance of the feast of the LORD's Passover, when more than nine hundred of Masada’s defenders chose suicide over inevitable defeat; all but two women and five children. The women, having hidden themselves and the children from the defenders of Masada, and from the Romans, in their underground cavern heard the noise of the great shout of the Romans suddenly exulting over the capture of that fortress; and they came out, and informed them what had been done, as it was done; and the second woman clearly described all of what had been said by the defenders and what was done, and the manner in which it had been done.

The Romans did not believe them, before they opened the palace, and there they saw the bodies of the dead, in room after room, slain by the dagger of the assassins in the hands of their own defenders. Miserable men indeed were they, whose distress and defiance chose for them in violation of Moses to slay their own wives and children with their own hands, as the better choice among the many evils that they saw before them; for they despaired of the mercy of God, utterly unmindful of their guilt in rejecting him, and despised with insolence and contempt the security offered by Silva, if only they would submit and save their lives; neither did Eleazar ben Jair the commander of the sicarii and the robbers once think of fleeing away, nor would he permit anyone else to do so. God himself in righteous judgment of the sins of that people withdrew his mercy and no longer restrained their insolence, that all generations might see the guilt of that whole generation in rejecting him. This Eleazar ben Jair, after setting before their eyes an imagination of what he said the Romans would do to them, their children, and their wives, if they got them in their power, it was he who took counsel about having them all murdered. And they chose by lot ten men, and these ten murdered all of the others; and then they chose by lot one among themselves, and the one murdered the nine, and finally the last one murdered himself. It was the day after Passover, in the year A.M. 3833, on the Sabbath, which is Saturday, eight April, A.D. 73, when they inflicted on themselves, and by their own hand, the judgment of heaven, through a defiant act of blasphemous sacrilege against the holiness of God. And the Romans took no pleasure in the fact, that here their enemies were dead. And God is just in his judgments, and righteous altogether. And this was the end of that war. The whole conflict is set forth by Josephus in the seven books of The Wars of the Jews, and abbreviated by Eusebius in chapters five through twelve of the third book of his Church History; and is only briefly mentioned by the Romans Suetonius, Tacitus and Cassius Dio.

About this same time, or shortly thereafter, the second book of Esdras called fourth Ezra was also written, that portion now called the third through the fourteenth chapters, in response to the destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the Temple, declaring the guilt of the nation for its sins against God:

The Second Book of Esdras, called Fourth Ezra, chapters 3–9.
The Second Book of Esdras, called Fourth Ezra, chapters 10–14.

Although Vespasian had in various ways avoided making Titus his own equal, over the two years A.D. 73 and 74 the son became the military arm of the new principate and is described by Suetonius as particeps atque etiam tutor imperii, “sharer and even protector of the empire”. As his father’s enforcer of state security he incurred unpopularity, worsened by his involvement with Berenice.

According to tradition, the two Apostles Saint Simon Zelotes and Saint Jude went to evangelize Armenia and Persia. Almost all the lands of the then known world, even as far as Britain, have been mentioned; according to the Greeks, Simon, surnamed Zelotes, preached the Gospel on the Black Sea, in Egypt, in Mauritania, Northern Africa, and even in Britain, in which latter country he was crucified, A.D. 74. According to Eusebius, Jude earlier had returned to Jerusalem in the year 62, and assisted at the election of his brother, Saint Simeon, as Episcopos of Jerusalem. The Abyssinians relate that Saint Simon suffered crucifixion as the Episcopos of Jerusalem, after he had preached the Gospel in Samaria. According to the Latin Passio Simonis et Judae (“The Passion of Simon and Jude”), Simon labored in Persia, and was there martyred at Suanir. According to another tradition both Jude and Simon were beheaded with an axe in Beirut, in the Roman province of Syria, about A.D. 65. Another tradition attests that they suffered martyrdom in the city of Suanir in the year 47. Still another tradition says that Jude, the brother of James, commonly called Thaddeus, was crucified at Edessa, A.D. 72, and that Simon the Zealot, Episcopos of Jerusalem, was crucified in A.D. 74.

Berenice, sister of the Syrian king Herod Agrippa the Second, at the height of her powers now visited Rome in A.D. 75 with her brother Agrippa and openly lived with Titus for a time in the palace, and expected to become his wife. Yet, marriage remained an impossibility. An eastern queen represented a threat to Roman stability that could not be tolerated by the Senate and the people of Rome. Titus reluctantly had to dismiss her. Tradition records that Titus was feared as the next Nero, a perception that may have developed from his association with Berenice, allegations of his heavy-handedness as Praetorian prefect, and tales of sexual debauchery. With respect to his natural disposition, and moral behavior, the expectations entertained by the public were not flattering. He was excessively addicted to luxury; he had revealed a strong inclination to cruelty, and a sympathy for brutality and humiliation in his enjoyment of the games in the arena; and he lived in the habitual practice of lewdness, as unnatural as it was unrestrained. He was supposed, besides, to have a grasping and greedy disposition; for it is certain, in causes which came before his father, that he used to offer his interest for sale, and take bribes. In short, people publicly expressed an unfavorable opinion of him, and said he would prove to be another Nero.

In A.D. 75, Sarmatian tribes overran Parthia’s northern borders, deposing the local Parthian nobles. Internal havoc continued to take its toll. It is therefore accurate to describe Parthia as a state in decline. Although the Romans themselves had also overextended and faced problems of their own, the declining stability in Parthia left it vulnerable.

There were occasional political problems in Rome as well:

Titus having no male issue, Vespasian throughout his reign was insistent that his sons would succeed him, one after the other, first Titus, then Domitian; and it was probably over hereditary succession that he quarreled with certain inflexibly idealistic senators such as Helvidius Priscus. An advocate of senatorial independence and a critic of the Flavian regime from the start, Helvidius and his friends had already expressed general misgivings about Vespasian’s government in the early months of A.D. 70; yet Vespasian was not angry, and was lenient toward him. But now Helvidius proceeded to bitterly stand against him and condemn with the most offensively abusive and demeaning language, as a commander would reprimand an outrageously insubordinate and undisciplined officer of questionable loyalty and foul moral character. Feeling himself thus debased to the level of a common foot-soldier by Priscus’s insufferable rudeness, Vespasian, outraged, banished him to exile.

Though Vespasian had indeed banished Helvidius Priscus in 75, afterward, about A.D. 76, he ordered him to be put to death; the executioners went forth from him and departed; yet he would gladly have saved him notwithstanding, and accordingly gave order that messengers be dispatched to fetch back the executioners, and would have saved him, had he not been deceived at that moment by a false account brought to him, that Priscus had already perished, and cancelled the order to the messengers; and he was executed.

According to tradition, St. Linus, Episcopos of Rome, the first successor of St. Peter, died on the twenty-third of September, A.D. 76. Anacletus was elected his successor.

In Britain important advances were made; the kingdom of Brigantia in northern England had been incorporated in the province, the pacification of Wales had been completed, and in A.D. 78 General Gnaeus Julius Agricola began the seven years’ governorship that was to lead Roman arms into the Scottish Highlands.

In 78 Vespasian executed Eprius Marcellus, one of his earliest and most efficient supporters, accused of a conspiracy that may have been directed at Titus’s association with the Jewish princess Berenice; and being offered the opportunity, Eprius committed suicide.

All are agreed that he had such confidence in the astrological calculations based on his own horoscope and that of his sons, that, after several conspiracies against him, he told the Senate that either his sons would succeed him, or no one. It is said that he once saw in a dream a balance in the middle of the porch of the Palatine house exactly poised; in one pan of it stood Claudius and Nero, in the other, himself and his sons Titus and Domitian. He had no one to interpret.

In 79 Titus suppressed a conspiracy, doubtless concerned with the succession. Aulus Alienus Caecina, formerly general under Vitellius, a man of consular rank, was condemned by Titus for conspiracy; for Titus had discovered a private document in the handwriting of Caecina, containing an account of a plot hatched among the soldiers; he invited him to supper, and, on his departure, immediately after he had gone out of the room, ordered that he be stabbed. Indeed, he was provoked to this act by his perception of an imminent danger. Caecina was executed in A.D. 79.

Vespasian was nearly always good-natured. By Roman standards he was a man of considerable wit, making frequent jokes. Not even when he was under immediate apprehension and peril of death could he resist joking. For when, among other marvels portending his death, the doors of the mausoleum of the Caesars suddenly flew open, and a blazing star called a hairy star appeared in the heavens, one of these prodigies, he said, concerned Julia Calvina, who was of the family of Augustus, open to everyone; and the other, the king of the Parthians, who wore his hair long. And during his ninth and last consulship Vespasian visited Campania; and being seized, while in Campania, with a slight indisposition, and bothered by slight attacks of fever when his distemper first seized him, he said, “I suppose I shall soon be a god.”

He hurried back to Rome. Immediately returning to the city, he soon afterward went on to Cutiliae, and his estates in the country, to his summer retreat near Reate, where he constantly used to spend the summer, where now he made things worse. Here, though his disorder much increased, and he injured his bowels by too free use of the cold waters, by bathing and swimming in cold water and irritating his stomach, yet he carried on with his imperial duties as usual; he nevertheless attended to the dispatch of business, and even received a deputation at his bedside, and gave audience to ambassadors in bed, before he had a sudden episode of diarrhea.

At last, being suddenly taken ill by a violent bout of diarrhea, to such a degree that he was ready to faint, and in fact almost fainted, he cried out, “An emperor ought to die standing upright.”

He struggled to rise, muttering that an emperor ought to die at least on his feet; in endeavoring to rise, in his last illness he said, “Vae, puto deus fio”, which is, “Oh dear, I think I’m becoming a god”; and collapsed in the arms of attendants who went to his rescue. The occasion is said to have inspired his deathbed quip: “Dear me! I must be turning into a god.” His deathbed joke was, “Oh my, I must be turning into a god!” And thus, after contracting a brief illness, he died in the hands of those who were helping him up.

Many say this was twenty-three June, A.D. 79, when he had lived sixty-nine years, seven months and seven days; others say it was the eighth of the Kalends of July, which is the twenty-fourth of June, being sixty-nine years, one month, and seven days old; and after his death he was immediately accorded deification.

In contrast to his immediate imperial predecessors, Vespasian died peacefully, at Aquae Cutiliae near his birthplace in Sabine country; and, when Vespasian died, on his death his son Titus promptly and peacefully succeeded him to the rule as emperor.

The ancient historians who lived through the period such as Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus and Pliny the Elder speak well of Vespasian while condemning the emperors that came before him. Eusebius says of Vespasian’s policy regarding Christians that Vespasian had attempted nothing to our prejudice during his reign. Yet Vespasian upon his arrival in Rome in A.D. 70 had soon ordered a search be made for all descendants of David so that no member of the royal house should be left among the Jews, which then resulted in another great persecution of the Jews, and of Christians who were assumed to be a sect of the Jews. His biographer Suetonius claims that throughout Vespasian’s reign his firm policy was first to restore stability to the tottering state, and then to adorn it. But, despite his buildings and his generosity to needy friends, he probably bequeathed a substantial surplus of public money to his successors. And he left the treasury with a surplus, and the common people as poor as they had been before.

Vespasian, Roman emperor, died on twenty-three or twenty-four June A.D. 79. When Vespasian had reigned for about ten years, emperor from A.D. 70 to 79, his son Titus succeeded him as emperor; and it was after Vespasian’s death that Titus assumed full imperial powers.

At Vespasian’s funeral, Favo, the principal mimic, impersonating him, and imitating, as actors do, both his manner of speaking and his gestures, asked aloud of the procurators how much his funeral and the procession would cost. And being answered, “ten millions of sesterces,” he cried out to give him only a hundred thousand sesterces, and that they might throw his body into the Tiber, if they would. But in fact, public deification did follow his death, as did his interment in the Mausoleum of Augustus alongside the Julio-Claudians.

This chapter is the thirteenth part of a sixteen-part summary of the intervening years between the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul under Nero and the writing of the New Testament works of the Epistle of Jude, the Book of Revelation and the Letters of John the Apostle. Sources are linked below.

Historians and Bible scholars disagree on the precise dates of the intervening years. But in general they do agree that the entire historical period extends from about A.D. 67 through 90.
The summary of the intervening years continues in the next four chapters Fifty-nine through Sixty-two. The concluding chapters Sixty-one, Sixty-two, and Sixty-three of this Harmony of the Gospel contain the First Letter of Clement and the Letter of Jude, and the Book of Revelation, and the Letters of John.
Note to the reader:
The text of this chapter is a redaction of the informative sources listed and linked below, rearranged, chronologically sequenced, collated, condensed, combined and adapted, while seeking to preserve much of their expressive language, and in some instances updating and improving both their translations and the written copy. Parallel constructions and duplications in the text have been kept to a minimum as far as possible without loss of information.

Ecclesiastical History III, chapters 12–13
Wars 7.5.3-7 [Book 7 [118-162]
Twelve Caesars: Vespasian 5–25
Twelve Caesars: Titus 5–11
Twelve Caesars: Domitian 1–2

The Twelve Caesars: Divus Vespasian
The Histories: Book IV (January - November, A.D. 70)
Vespasian: Roman Emperor (britannica.com)
Vespasian (roman-emperors.org)

The Twelve Caesars: Divus Titus
The Histories: Book V (A.D. 70)
Titus: Roman Emperor (britannica.com)
Titus (roman-emperors.org)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXIV (penelope.uchicago.edu)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXV (penelope.uchicago.edu)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXVI (penelope.uchicago.edu)

War, Book 7 (biblestudytools.com)

Eccesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, Book III, chapters 11, 12 and 13
Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org)

Chapter 11 Simeon ruled the Church of Jerusalem after James
Chapter 12 Vespasian commands the descendants of David be sought
Chapter 13 Anencletus, the second Bishop of Rome
Chapter 14 Avilus, the second Bishop of Alexandria

Compare
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Bible maps (click initial letter of place name)
Bible Encyclopedias: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature (studylight.org)
Catholic Encyclopedia Catholic Online (catholic.org)
Hebrew Calendar Converter See exact equivalents of Gregorian Calendar dates.

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Table of Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, in English translation, Joel Kalvesmaki 2013 (kalvesmaki.com)

List of 300 Septuagint Old Testament quotations in the New Testament, by Steve Rudd 2017 (bible.ca)

Table of LXX quotes and allusions in the New Testament


Church History (Eusebius): The Ecclesiastical History Of Eusebius Pamphilus: Bishop Of Caesarea, In Palestine (newadvent.org)

The Works of Flavius Josephus William Whiston, Translator, 1737 (sacred-texts.com)

Suetonius: Twelve Caesars: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by C. Suetonius Tranquilus; To which are added His Lives of the Grammarians, Rhetoricians, and Poets. The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D., Revised and corrected by T. Forester, Esq., A.M. (Gutenberg.org)

Tacitus: The Annals, Written 109 A.C.E. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
Tacitus: The Histories, Written 109 A.C.E. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (A.D. 69 through 70)

Sextus Aurelius Victor: Epitome De Caesaribus (roman-emperors.org)

Eutropius: Breviarium - Eutropius's Abridgement of Roman History (tertullian.org)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome (penelope.uchicago.edu)

Early Christian Writings A.D. 30 through 380 (earlychristianwritings.com)
See Biblical Canon and Apocrypha.

See the Conservapedia article, Vespasian

See the following resources:

Josephus: The Essential Writings A Condensation of Jewish Antiquities and The Jewish War, Translated and Edited by Paul L. Maier, © 1988, Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel, Inc. P.O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501
Eusebius—The Church History: A New Translation with Commentary, Copyright © 1999 by Paul Maier, Published by Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel Inc., P.O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501


"relatives of the Lord according to the flesh"

See Romans 1:3

"They all discussed together who ought to succeed James...Symeon, son of the Clopas mentioned in the Gospels"

Eccesiastical History, Book III, Chapter 11. Simeon ruled the Church of Jerusalem after James

"through the laying on of their hands"

that is, the hands of the Apostles and Episcopes (bishops).
See Acts 6:6; 13:3; 1 Timothy 4:14; 5:22; Hebrews 6:2; also Apostolic succession.
The relatives of the Lord according to the flesh probably joined in by also afterward laying their hands on him, to indicate their approval and prayerful support. And while there is no indication one way or the other that they actually did or did not do so, and no evidence in the sources that they did, the supposition is not an unreasonable one.
The Catholic Church teaches that the ordinary faithful who have received Baptismal priesthood, as anointed prophets, priests and kings, but who have not received the sacrament of Holy Orders, have no authority to ordain priests and consecrate bishops; and that only validly consecrated bishops, with the approval of the Pope, can consecrate a man who is a validly ordained priest and approved candidate for elevation and consecration as a bishop and successor of the apostles.
The requirement of approval by the Pope is rejected as unnecessary by many Eastern churches, and also by disobedient and schismatic Catholic bishops and priests. For example: those Old Catholics who rejected the dogma of papal infallibility as defined by Vatican I, and applied to the bishops of the semi-autonomous Church of Utrecht for priestly ordination and episcopal consecration, and received their approval, and the sacraments, according to the Augustinian theory of Holy Orders which states that because of the indelible character of a consecration, a validly consecrated bishop permanently retains Episcopal powers notwithstanding any schisms or excommunications; and the followers of schismatic bishop Marcel Lefebvre, who rejected the reforms of Vatican II, and with the cooperation of other dissidents consecrated bishops and priests for his separatist movement, the "Lefebrvites" of the Society of St. Pius X.
Before them, John and Charles Wesley similarly saw need finally to ordain ministers of the Gospel without seeking authorized approval from the leaders of the Anglican Church; and before them, the leaders of the Protestant Reformation elected to ordain their own ministers of the Gospel, missionaries, preachers, teachers, pastors, presbyters, priests and bishops, depending on their various theological, philosophical, and denominational points of view.
Compare Matthew 18:17; Acts 15:6; Acts 15:24; Romans 13:1; 1 Corinthians 12:28; 2 Timothy 2:2; Hebrews 13:17;
also 3 John 9; 1 John 2:19
See Sedevacantism.

"Hegesippus"

an early Christian historian. See the following:

"son of the Clopas mentioned in the Gospels"

See John 19:25; Luke 24:18.
This name is variously spelled in translations of John 19:25 Κλωπᾶ Klopa as Cleophas, Clopas, Cleopa. In translations of Luke 24:18 Κλεοπᾶς Kleopas it is consistently spelled as Cleopas.
The KJV reading "Cleophas" (instead of "Cleopas") renders the spelling in the name as the letter phi φ instead of as the letter pi π according to the biblical text. The King James Only movement firmly maintains that the KJV reading is correct and that the others are corruptions of the text.

"Gaius Licinius Mucianus, the governor of Syria and ally of Vespasian"

See Britannica article Gaius Licinius Mucianus (britannica.com)

"one January A.D. 70, 823 A.U.C in the Roman Calendar"

January 1, 70 is January 1, 823 A.U.C..
A.U.C. dates in the Roman Calendar are based on the legendary date "from the founding of the city of Rome" ab urbi conditae in 753 B.C.. By adding 753 years to the date in the Gregorian Calendar beginning in the Christian Era Anno Domini (A.D.) the Roman year A.U.C. can be calculated. Conversely, subtracting the number of the date B.C. (Before the Christian Era) from 753 gives the date in the Roman Calendar. The year 1 A.U.C. is 753 B.C., and the year A.D. 1 is 754 A.U.C.. Compare Anno Mundi.

"In late summer, about the end of September, early October A.D. 70"

This sentence is redacted from two modern sources, and adapted:
"Upon his arrival in Rome in late summer, A.D. 70".
—Vespasian (roman-emperors.org)
"About October 70 Vespasian returned to Rome from Alexandria."
—Vespasian: Roman Emperor (britannica.com)
The phrase, "about the end of September", has been added here to bridge the apparent discrepancy. This is according to the usual temperature and weather conditions of Italy in late September, early October, as hot and warm, exactly like summer, instead of according to the date of the autumnal equinox officially ending summer and beginning autumn in the modern Gregorian Calendar (conditions similar to the summer-like Labor Day Weekend in the U.S. which feels more like a warm, sometimes hot, summer weekend, than a cooler autumn weekend). The cooler temperature and climate characteristic of autumn begins to be noticed in Rome normally during the last week of October, and much later in the month, or beginning early in November.

"Suetonius considered Vespasian to be the "savior that would come out of Judea"

Suetonius set forth his opinion in De Vitae Caesarium (The Twelve Caesars), Vespasian 4.

"the voice of his holy Apostles went throughout all the earth, and their words to the end of the world"

Ecclesiastical History III, 8.
Eusebius adapts Psalm 19:4 as cited by Paul in Romans 10:18 as a prophesy of the missionary work of the apostles. Paul's reading of Psalm 19:4 is according to the Septuagint, not according to the Hebrew.

"He carefully and zealously publicized the number of divine omens"

Anything the Romans superstitiously regarded as an omen or sign from their gods was deemed by them to be divine, or more accurately, as having a supernatural cause of some kind.
The origin of all so-called omens, which the pagans characterize as divine signs, from then to now is from human imaginings and speculative guessing, groping about in the darkness of ignorance, without knowledge of the divinely revealed truth of reality from God the Father through Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit in the Church:
Ephesians 3:10;
1 Timothy 3:15;
Colossians 2:2-3, 18-19;
Hebrews 13:17;
2 Thessalonians 2:15;
2 Peter 1:19-20; 3:17;
1 Corinthians 12:7-8, 27-28;
1 John 2:18-27;
2 Corinthians 2:17;
2 Peter 3:16-17;
Galatians 1:8-9.
Compare
1 Maccabees 3:48;
2 Maccabees 8:18;
2 Maccabees 10:28;
2 Maccabees 15:7-9.

"greatly impressed by an inspection of a sacrificial animal's entrails by the augur"

Augurs—pagan diviners, fortune-tellers.
The augur was a religious official of ancient Rome whose duty was to foretell and advise on future events by interpreting omens. Augury is a form of divination.

"An ancient oak tree, sacred to Mars"

See the following articles:
Compare Mithras, a Persian deity commonly worshiped by Roman soldiers:
Some researchers have argued that Christianity, especially Orthodoxy and Catholicism, are adapted versions of pagan Mithraism promoted by the Roman emperor Constantine in the 4th century. See The two babylons and Great Apostasy; also Syncretism.
See also:

"Later, during Vespasian's aedileship"

—the office of magistrate.
An aedile was a magistrate of ancient Rome who had charge of public lands, buildings, public spectacles, etc.; also spelled edile; from Latin aedilis, from aedes building.

"a distinguished Jewish prisoner of Vespasian's, Josephus by name, insisted that he would soon be released by the very man who had now put him in fetters and who would then be emperor."

Josephus himself relates this event in Wars 3.8.9 [399-408].
Readers of Josephus occasionally come across passages such as this in which Josephus offers what he sees as evidence that he is personally favored by God with the gift of prophecy.

"the chariot of Jupiter Optimus Maximus"

A symbol of Roman rule under the aegis (protection, patronage) of Jupiter the king of the Roman gods.

"Serapis"

a Greco-Egyptian fertility deity
See the following sources:

"Returning now to Rome, under these auspicious omens"

favorable omens, signs.
The Romans and the Greeks had an entirely superstitious view of reality. Seeking omens as a superstitious means of discernment is also called "taking the auspices".
See Augury (Auspices) - Wikipedia
See also Superstition.
Vespasian probably had these omens interpreted officially (after the fact) by augurs, as a means of supporting the legitimacy of his election as emperor of Rome, and as particular evidences to the people that he had been chosen by the gods.
This is a form of what many Christians also unwittingly practice in choosing to see particular occurrences in their lives as signs from God—such as finding a rose or a coin, or unexpectedly seeing, hearing, feeling something in nature, such as prickling of the skin, a light-headed feeling, a sudden breeze, aromas, odors, smells, birdsong, formations of rocks or patterns of woodgrain, cloud formations, or visual disturbances in the eye or visual cortex of the brain ("floaters", spots, flashes of color, temporary blind spots), weirdly odd dreams, or accidentally opening the Bible to an unexpected passage that seems to speak to their current circumstance—coincidences which they interpret as signs of direction or support or approval or warning from God.
There is a form of superstitious divination called "bibliomancy" which uses the deliberately random opening of a book, especially the Bible, for the purpose of instantly finding a passage of counsel or guidance, as a way of getting God to speak directly to the reader, instead of praying for guidance, seeking good advice, and using common sense, the gift of human intelligence.
See the following links:
The Catholic Church forbids as a sin against God the seeking of omens, and forbids the sacrilegious practice of a superstitious use of the Bible and the sacrilege of any superstitious abuse of authorized and approved devotional practices: "Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2110); see especially CCC Paragraph 2115.
"Worship becomes indebitus cultus when incongruous, meaningless, improper elements are added to the proper and approved performance" [of approved forms of prayer or worship]
—Catholic Encyclopedia Online: "Superstition" (see entire article Superstition (catholic.org).)
The term "indebitus cultus" is Latin, literally translated as "undue culture"; illicit custom, deviant or improper practice or observance; unauthorized, forbidden, a practice perverting the good—to "pervert" is to turn to an improper use or purpose; to misapply.
Perverting or frustrating the original purpose or function of what is good is an essential characteristic of sin. A "pervert" is someone who deliberately misuses and abuses the good things and the bodily powers that God in his wisdom created both for his glory and the honor, benefit and health of the human race.
See Wisdom 1:12-2:24; Romans 1:18-2:11; Sirach 10:19; 34:1-13; 39:26-27.
Determining the future by means of augury or taking omens as a guide to making decisions and taking any important action, or refraining from action, is forbidden by God in the Bible.
See Leviticus 19:26, 31; 20:6; Isaiah 8:19; 19:3; Micah 5:12; Acts 16:16 and 18.
Compare Numbers 24:1
Some Christians even use the promise of Jesus in Matthew 18:19 as a form of magic (unrecognized)—that is, as a means to automatically compel God to do their bidding—an abuse of scripture which James addresses in James 4:3.
Compare
Acts 19:13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.
Some sects and denominations of Christianity, for example, the Jehovah's Witnesses and Churches of Christ, zealously condemn other Christian churches and denominations for what they clearly interpret as scripturally condemned attempts to keep the Law of Moses, and interpret as the demonically instituted pagan superstition of "observing times" in their celebrations of Christmas, Easter, Reformation Sunday, Independence Day (4th of July) and other yearly anniversaries (Leviticus 19:26; Galatians 4:10; Galatians 5:4; 1 Timothy 4:1). The prescribed Jewish observances of the solemn feasts of the Lord, "months and days", according to the Law of Moses (Numbers 28-29; Deuteronomy 16:1-16) are not part of any Christian liturgical calendar. The Christian emphasis of a regular, periodic highlighting of particular aspects of the Faith, and of memorializing the deeds and dedicated lives of those individuals who served God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength to the point of shedding their blood as inspiring motivations to live holy lives in dedication to the one true God, is not the meaning of "observing days, and months, and seasons and years" assigned in the Torah (Galatians 4:10). The pagan practice of "observing times", both then and now, had and has to do instead with the practice of determining the most auspicious and inauspicious times for doing or not doing anything important, either by observing omens or by consulting a horoscope or by other means of divination. See, for example, the Book of Esther in which Haman seeks the advice of pagan priests by their casting of lots to determine the most propitious day and month for exterminating the Jews (Esther 3:7).
See the excellent treatment on this topic in
Topical Bible: Divination (biblehub.com);
also Catholic Encyclopedia: Divination (newadvent.org)
and Jewish Encyclopedia: Divination (jewishencyclopedia.com).
See also St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae: Question 95. Superstition in divinations (newadvent.org)

"but a fragment of the empowering law survives, the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani, and it includes a provision that can be said to confer on him a naked autocracy"

See archive pdf 1902 edition:
Lex de Imperio Vespasiani: a consideration of some of the constitutional aspects of the principate at Rome. A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature of the University of Chicago for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Bu Fred B. R. Hellems, sometime Fellow of University College, Toronto; sometime Fellow of the University of Chicago. Chicago, Foresman and Company 1902 (archive.org)
See also:

"The measures he imposed are consistent with his characterization in the sources as both obdurate and avaricious."

Obduracy is the primary character flaw in people who are stubborn and unyielding, unmoved by persuasion, pity, or tender feelings; stubbornly resistant to moral influence; persistently impenitent of any genuine mistakes they have made or offenses, even outrages, they have committed. See Narcissism and Pride, also Sociopath. Compare Repentance and Humility.

"Helvidius Priscus, an advocate of senatorial independence...when he came to be praetor, omitted any mark of honor to him,"

Praetor, Latin, from praeire to go before. A city magistrate of ancient Rome, having charge of the administration of justice.

"now celebrated the whole of the Judean campaign with a triumph over the Jews"

A spectacular grand parade. In Roman antiquity, a triumph was the religious pageant of the entry of a victorious Roman general, consul, dictator, or praetor into Rome. Patriotic Roman celebrations in antiquity were expressions of pagan Roman religion.
Secular U.S. parallels in the 20th century were the parades honoring elected presidents, military leaders, astronauts, and occasionally Olympic athletes.
See Images of the looting of the Temple of Jerusalem.

"tribunician authority, the full authority of a Roman tribune"

A Roman official.
In Roman history, a tribune was a magistrate chosen by the plebeians, the common lower class, to protect them from patrician oppression (the rich).
See Britannica article Tribune: Roman Official (britannica.com)

"coins with the words IUDAEA CAPTA, which is Judaea captive"

Some of these Judaea Capta coins are extremely degrading—for example, the Titus Sestertius 80/81 CE (Brom. 312). See articles:

"dominated by a powerfully erected, standing figure"

This "erected" instead of "erect" is not a grammatical error, but is according to the pagan image of a Roman male figure on some of the coins humiliating the female image representing Judea.

"Hegesippus also reports that after the conquest of Jerusalem, Vespasian ordered a search be made for all descendants of David"

Eccesiastical History, Book III, Chapter 12 Vespasian commands the descendants of David be sought

"auctoritas"

Latin, (commanding) authority.
Moral and social impact, what we call a "commanding presence", which is more than mere celebrity.
Involving more persuasion than good advice, but slightly less compelling than official commands, decrees, laws or military orders, auctoritas represented a powerful moral, social, cultural, even spiritual influence that was consequential, admirable prestige and endurable fame, and therefore difficult to dismiss or ignore. In ancient Rome, it referred to the general level of prestige a person had in Roman society, and, as a consequence, the power to influence others, especially because of one's commanding manner or recognized expertise and knowledge about something, with ability to rally support around one's will. It could be either benevolent or malevolent. Auctoritas was not merely political, but had a mysteriously awe-inspiring quality that could actually be felt, the "power of command" of heroic Roman figures. There were influential women in Roman society too who had auctoritas. For example, the wives, sisters, and mothers of the Julio-Claudians had immense influence on society, the masses, and the political machine.
See the following sources:

"Vespasian also deified his dead daughter Flavia Domitilla."

Her Apotheosis.
See end paragraph of Britannica article Vespasian
Vespasian declared Flavia Domitilla to be divine, a goddess, and authorized her cult of worship.
See also Catholic Encyclopedia article apotheosis (newadvent.org)
Compare Wisdom 14:15-21 RSVCE.

"title of divinity, Augusta"

the feminine form of "Augustus".
The meaning of Augustus carried with it ideas of superhuman status, from the Latin ‘augere‘ meaning ‘to increase’, connected also with ‘augurium‘ and the religious connotations of augury, and elevated the "august one" beyond mortal limits.
Compare Tertullian - Apology: Chapter XXXIV. Augustus, the founder of the empire, would not even have the title Lord… (biblehub.com)

"a temple to Divus Claudius, the deified Claudius, on the Caelian Hill"

See Imperial cult: Roman religion (bbc.co.uk). See also Deification and Wisdom 14:12-21.
The Caelian Hill is one of the famous Seven hills of Rome.
The Vatican Hill where St. Peter's Basilica is located was not one of the seven hills on which sat the city of Rome. It never was. See Revelation 17:9

"forty thousand million sesterces, forty billion"

An appalling sum.
The amount stated, "40,000 million" is according to Suetonius, Twelve Caesars, Vespasian XVI:
T. FLAVIUS VESPASIANUS AUGUSTUS.
(gutenberg.org)
.
The calculated numerical amount is
40,000 × 1,000,000 = 40,000,000,000 !
The worded numerical figure in the U.S. is "forty billion"; in the U.K. "forty thousand million"; also sometimes expressed as "forty milliard".
Previously in British English (but not American English), the word "billion" referred exclusively to a million millions (1,000,000 × 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000,000—in the U.S. "one trillion"). However, this is no longer as common, and the word "billion" has been more recently used in the 20th and 21st centuries internationally to commonly mean one thousand million (1,000 × 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000—in the U.S. one billion).
The alternative term "one thousand million" is mainly used in the U.K.. The worded figure, as opposed to the numerical figure (one thousand million/1,000,000,000) is used in the U.K. to differentiate between "one thousand million" and "one billion".
The lesser used term milliard can also be used to refer to 1,000,000,000 (U.S. "billion"); while "milliard" is seldom used in English, variations on this name often appear in other languages.
One million sesterces equals 250,000 days' wages at one denarius/day, or 833.4 years' wages for one seasonal worker at 300 days/yr. (250,000/300 days = 833.4 yrs.), or 8.33 years' total payroll for 100 seasonal workers. This is roughly equivalent to one year's payroll for 800 unskilled laborers.
(Multiply hourly wage times 48 hours per week times 42 weeks per year for one migrant worker times 800. HW × 48 × 42 × 800.)
Multiply these figures by 40,000.
(40,000 × 1,000,000 = 40,000,000,000 ÷ 250,000 days' wages per million sesterces = 16,000 yrs. wages for one seasonal worker, or 8 years' wages for 2,000 paid seasonal workers at 300 days/yr.)
This does not include numbers of unpaid slaves who would also be assigned to work detail in the cities.)
See article Roman Money Sondra's guide to Roman Money - Harvard (sites.fas.harvard.edu)

"and applied to the best purposes what he procured by bad means"

—in other words, "The end justifies the means."
This reflects the personal policy of Vespasian's governing philosophy. He wished to repair, restore and improve Rome and the Empire, and did whatever he deemed necessary, good or bad, to achieve that end.
This proverbial saying expresses the essential character of the corrupt and evil philosophies of both Pragmatism and Utilitarianism—"Whatever works!" (see commentaries on Romans 3:7 and 3:8).
Some individuals, especially career criminals, and unscrupulous, self-serving government officials will even do what is objectively good, solely in order to achieve an end that is objectively evil. See Relativism.
Practitioners of magic and sorcery in Paganism and the New Age Movement distinguish between three kinds of workings:
black magic, purely evil methods, for evil purposes (immoral),
gray magic, good and bad methods, for any purpose (amoral), and
white magic, purely good methods, for good purposes (moral).
Many of them are guided by their own consciences, according to what they themselves see as right or wrong. (See commentaries on Judges 21:25.)
Many of them follow the precept (in 16th century English)
"An it harm none, do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law".
In contrast to this is the dictum,
"Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law"
(see especially Thelema.)
In either case, the individual, seduced by this appeal to personal pride (self-sufficiency) as a core principle of personal existence, and motivated by a misguided religious impulse as spiritual justification, makes himself or herself the final authority, in effect, their own god; many of them actually do much good in society, because they feel it is right; but they are not completely submitted to the one true God who is, and to the revelation of the fundamental, external reality of objective truth through Jesus Christ our Lord and his body, the Christian church, the pillar and foundation of the truth
1 Timothy 3:15;
Ephesians 3:10;
Colossians 1:18;
Hebrews 13:7;
Hebrews 13:17.
See Acts 19:19.
See also Catechism of the Catholic Church, (CCC) 1786-1794.

"restorer of the Coan of Venus"

Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Vespasian 18.
According to the translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D., revised and corrected by T. Forester, Esq., A.M., the Coan of Venus was the chef-d’oeuvre of Apelles, a native of the island of Cos, in the Archipelago, who flourished in the time of Alexander the Great. See Apelles - the greatest painter of antiquity, by John J. Popovic, from Pliny the Elder and other fonts
According to the translation by Robert Graves, revised with an introduction and notes by J. B. Rives, (Penguin Classics 1957, 2007, Vespasian, 18, p. 284), the phrase reads,
"refashioned the Venus of Cos".
The Venus of Cos was a sculpture of Venus copied from one of two sculptures of Aphrodite originally made by Praxiteles, in honor of feminine sensual beauty, on the islands of Cos and Cnidus.
Read the following scriptures before reading the articles below:
Song of Solomon 4;
Proverbs 7; 9:13-18;
Ezekiel 23;
Matthew 5:27-30;
Romans 1:22-27;
and commentaries on
Jude 4, 7, 23;
and Hebrews 13:4
See articles:

"Licinius Mucianus, governor of Syria, a Roman eques, who treated the history and geography of the eastern countries."

This Roman knight is the same General Gaius Licinius Mucianus, the legate and governor of Syria who managed the regency of Domitian and dominated Rome after the death of Vitellius, while Vespasian was yet absent and on his way to Rome. A clever writer and historian, he made a collection of the speeches and letters of the Romans of the older republican period, probably including a corpus of proceedings of the senate (res gesta senatus), and was the author of a work, chiefly dealing with the natural history and geography of the East, which is often quoted by Pliny as an authority, especially for fabulous statements.
See Mucianus (revolvy.com)

"he admitted his Friends"

his special Advisors.
The office or special position of Friend (of the ruler) is analogous to the office of "specially appointed presidential Advisor", as distinct from Member of the Cabinet, or Leader of the House or Senate.
See Friend of the King Holman Bible Dictionary (studylight.org)
Compare
2 Samuel 15:32-37; 16:15-19
—"Hushai, David’s friend"
—"Hushai the Archite, David's friend"
1 Kings 4:5
Daniel 14:1-2
1 Maccabees 10:18-20
John 15:14-15
John 19:12
James 2:23
Wisdom makes Friends of God, and Prophets:
Wisdom 7:27-28; 8:4
(context Wisdom 7:7–9:18)
Proverbs 8
Acts 1:14
John 2:5
John 19:27
Revelation 12:1
Daniel 12:3

"Metius Pomposianus...was destined by fate to the empire"

that is, destined by fate to be emperor.
The ancient expressions, "come to empire", and, "he came to the empire", are equivalent to saying, "become Emperor," and, "he became ruler of the empire (as Imperator, emperor)".
It is worth noting that Metius Pomposianus was never emperor.
Astrologers and their horoscopes are notoriously unreliable. They take three approaches: descriptive, prescriptive, predictive:
as supposedly describing the subject's character;
as supposedly recommending what should be done and what should be avoided, day by day, year by year, over a lifetime;
and as supposedly predicting the unavoidable destinies of individuals, peoples and nations.
Several studies have completely debunked astrology:
Jeane Dixon, the famous U.S. psychic and astrologer, who advised presidents and famous celebrities, was completely discredited after her false prognostications about the presidency and international events never occurred:

"the historian who with prejudice distrusts singular historical accounts not corroborated or duplicated by other sources as verification"

The presence of a persistent prejudice against accepting elements of historical narrative not multiply attested by others is readily evident.
Ancient historians, whose accounts of particular matters have been consistently verified as factually accurate and altogether trustworthy, by the finding of parallel accounts of the same particular matters in the works of other ancient historians, are nevertheless, on the demanding principle of multiple verification, held to be untrustworthy when they relate particular matters found only in their works alone, and not found related elsewhere.
The highly significant fact that other writers of their times do not raise questions about the accuracy of their historical narratives appears, on the contrary, to validate the integrity of the whole of their works by their silences. Where no dissenting voice is raised, and several elements of the historical narrative of the writer have been consistently verified by other historical writers of their time, the evidence is in favor of accepting as reliable those elements of the writing not found elsewhere.
The fact that "A certain amount of ill-repute can be expected for Vespasian's enforcer, but apart from the account of these acts, only a single instance of justice of this kind survives", does not in fact make "any further evaluation of Titus's role difficult", for there is an abundance of narrative about his character and deeds in other ancient sources which supports the narrative of Suetonius regarding his behavior toward suspected members of the Praetorian guard.
No contemporary writer of the times charges Suetonius with falsehood, inflation, gross exaggeration or distortion of facts. Tacitus, Cassius Dio, Josephus and Eusebius do not contradict each other, they do not contradict Suetonius, and they do not defame each other as liars. This supports the integrity and veracity of their historical narratives, and this supports Suetonius' assertions regarding Titus, making "evaluation of Titus's role", on the contrary, relatively simple, as well as providing grounds for accepting as reliable the historical assessment presented by Suetonius.
This common prejudice among liberal historians, on the principle of demanding a priori multiple independent verification, especially by insisting on first seeking independent verifying support in the works of non-Christian pagan authors hostile to the claims of Christ, as if the pagan writer is more trustworthy than the Christian, is responsible for the prevalence of negative, unfavorable evaluations of the Gospel accounts of Jesus, his words, and his miracles, as "highly improbable literary inventions" of the church "without any factual basis in reality", simply because no pagan historian outside of Christianity independently verifies them. Christianity is dismissed as grounded in fiction, and Christians are implicitly represented as dupes or as ignorant and credulous fools, because the multiple documentations of the historical eyewitness accounts in the Gospels (Luke 1:2) are dismissed as fabrications lacking independent verification. But this is not a case of only one single document being questioned, and of only one single first century writer's personal point of view. Each of the four Gospels is a separate historical narrative independently attested and verified by the corroborating multiple testimonies of each of the other three, supported by the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and the tradition of Christianity, each of them written independently by their authors, based on their researches of the background testimony of the eyewitnesses, and preserved and copied as truthful documents of historical fact.
See Historical-critical method (Higher criticism).
See also Historicity of Jesus.
Compare Literary Traditions: Ten Reasons the Gospels are Works of Fiction (threeskeptics.blogspot.com)

"By this time the Apostle Bartholomew had carried the Gospel through the most barbarous countries of the East"

"When his son Titus blamed him for even laying a tax on urine, commonly used for bleaching cloth..."

"one who would not hesitate to do his work for him by using methods of intimidation as his enforcer."

Vespasian authorized Titus to use measures consistent with dictatorships, totalitarian regimes, and police states.
Compare Christian persecution.

"catamites"

from Latin Catamitus, a Latin altered form of Greek Ganamēdēs Ganymede.
The term springs from the name in Greek mythology of the beautiful young boy who was made cupbearer of the gods on Mount Olympus.
Catamites are young boys used as tools for prostitution (sodomy). The KJV translates them as "effeminate". St. Paul mentions them in 1 Corinthians 6:9.
The Greek word Paul uses is μαλακoί malakōi (plural); see multiple versions of 1 Corinthians 6:9—Strong's number 3120 (singular, μαλακoς malakōs): soft, i.e. fine; figuratively a catamite:—effeminate, soft.
The NAB translates the word as "boy prostitutes"; NRSV as "sodomites"; REB as "sexual perverts" (see parallel translations).
Robert Graves in his translation of The Twelve Caesars, Titus 7, renders the plural form of the term as "boy toys".
"Eunuchs", also mentioned, are castrated males, usually surgically mutilated before the onset of puberty, many of whom in Roman times frequently dressed as women.
Male devotees of the mother goddess Cybele, in their insane zeal to be completely identified with their goddess, frequently had themselves totally castrated, and their external genitals entirely removed, so that they might physically resemble women. See Transgender and Transsexual.

"After the dispersion of the Apostles during the persecution which arose after the martyrdom of Saint Stephen in Jerusalem, it is an established historical fact that Saint Thomas went to India"

"Lucius Flavius Silva, governor of Judea"

See:

"the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread, the day after the observance of the feast of the LORD's Passover"

Leviticus 23:5-6, Mark 14:1.
The Jewish day commencing at sunset, the Passover lamb was to be killed before sunset on the day which we reckon as the 13th, but by their reckoning was the beginning of the 14th "at even" in the evening, and eaten on what we should call the night between the thirteenth and fourteenth days.
What we normally call sunset of the 14th is the beginning of the 15th, and by Jewish reckoning sunset Friday is the beginning of Shabbos / Shabbat the Sabbath (Saturday) when all work ceases. See The Jewish Day (chabad.org)
The fourteenth day of the month Nisan was the LORD's Passover (Leviticus 23:5), and the fifteenth day of the month immediately following was the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread, which is seven days (Leviticus 23:6). By the first century both together were commonly called the days of Unleavened Bread (Mark 14:1; Luke 22:1; Matthew 26:2).
Here, the distinction between the two is reiterated in accordance with the law of Moses. Eleazar ben Jair and his sicarii executed them the day after their observance of the first day of Passover.

"Eleazar ben Jair"

See Eleazar ben Jair Encyclopedia Judaica, Thomson Gale (encyclopedia.com)

"sicarii"

also called Zealots.
The sicarii were so-called because of the daggers, sicae (singular, sica), they carried hidden on their persons under their clothing, ready to kill their enemies whenever they had opportunity. They are thought to be an extremist subgroup of the Zealot party.
In Latin, "sicarius" is a common term for an assassin.
See the following articles:
See Matthew 10:4 and Luke 6:15
"Simon the Canaanean"
"Simon the Zealot"
"Simon zealotes"
See also multiple commentaries on Matthew 10:4.

"And God is just in his judgments, and righteous altogether."

See Psalm 19:9; Revelation 16:6-7.

"About this same time, or shortly thereafter, the second book of Esdras called fourth Ezra was also written, that portion now called the third through the fourteenth chapters"

The text of 2 Esdras 3–14 was written sometime during the last decades of the first century by a Jewish author in response to the destruction of Jerusalem. It stands as an example of the kind of Apocalyptic writing that was current during the last centuries B.C. and the first and second centuries of the Christian Era.
Textual scholars using the most reliable research techniques of the Historical-critical method (Higher criticism) have determined with a high degree of certainty that during the middle of the second century, 2 Esdras chapters 1–2 and 15–16 were added by Christian writers, and the whole was then represented as a prophesy of the coming of Christ and the founding of the Christian Church by God.
Second Esdras, Fourth Ezra, was never part of the Septuagint Old Testament of the Greek Bible of the ancient apostolic church, and is not included in the Greek Bible of the Orthodox Church, which does include all of the books acknowledged by the Catholic Church together with Third Maccabees and Psalm 151, and in an appendix the book of Fourth Maccabees. It was included by Jerome in the fourth century in the text of the Latin Vulgate Bible as Fourth Esdras, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah being titled First and Second Esdras, and what is usually known today as First Esdras titled Third Esdras. Second Esdras (Fourth Ezra) was also included in the Apocrypha of Luther's German Bible and the Apocrypha of the King James Bible. It has never been listed by the Catholic Church as included among the sacred inspired canonical scriptures, but was included in an appendix to the Old Testament of the Clementine Edition of the Vulgate as 4 Esdras, together with the "Prayer of Manasses King of Juda, when he was held captive in Babylon" and 1 Esdras called "3 Esdras" (followed by "4 Esdras"), "lest they be lost altogether"; and it does not appear in the authorized Douay-Rheims Bible currently published by Saint Benedict Press.
2 Esdras is usually included in ecumenical editions of the Bible, such as:
The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version
ISBN 13: 9780195289558
and
The Complete Parallel Bible with the Apocryphal/deuterocanonical Books: New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible (Oxford) ISBN 13: 9780195283181
See the following articles and resources:

"the kingdom of Brigantia in northern England had been incorporated in the province"

See Brigantes Nation: The Kingdom of Venutius – Brigantia – AD 69 (brigantesnation.com)

"In A.D. 75, Sarmatian tribes overran Parthia’s northern borders"

"Many say this was twenty-three June, A.D. 79, when he had lived sixty-nine years, seven months and seven days; others say on the eighth of the Kalends of July, which is the 24th of June, being sixty-nine years, one month, and seven days old."

Historical writers disagree on the exact date of Vespasian's death and the exact length of his life. See for example the following sources:
  • "...upon the eighth of the calends of July [24th June], being sixty-nine years, one month, and seven days old."— Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Vespasian 24, translated by Alexander Thomson, M.D. 1796, Revised and corrected by T. Forester, Esq. A.M. (boldface emphasis added).
    —"the eighth of the calends" of any month means "beginning with a count of seven days before the first day of the next month", the calends of the month (in this case 1 July) being the eighth day of the count:
    1 July - 7 = 24 June. The twenty-fourth of June through the first of July, inclusive, is eight days:
24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 1.
  • " This was 23 June, when he had lived sixty-nine years, seven months, and seven days."— Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Vespasian 24, translated by Robert Graves, 1965 (boldface emphasis added). Robert Graves reckons the "eighth of the calends of July" as eight days before the first day of July, the calends of July being the ninth day, which, according to the above reckoning, makes the 23rd of June the nones of the calends of July (1 July being the ninth day).
23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 1.
"others say it was the eighth of the Kalends of July, which is the twenty-fourth of June".
This does not seem very important, but such details may indicate to other historians something about the degree of accuracy of the knowledge of the writer. (See, for example, The Two Babylons.)

"The ancient historians who lived through the period such as Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus and Pliny the Elder speak well of Vespasian while condemning the emperors that came before him."

Source: "Otho, Vitellius, and the Propaganda of Vespasian", The Classical Journal (1965), p. 267-269.

Fifty-nine

Chapter 59 Historical texts
Bible text

Titus, in full, Titus Vespasianus Augustus, his original name being Titus Flavius Vespasianus like his father, was born thirty December A.D. 39. He was the conqueror of Jerusalem in 70, and Roman emperor from 79 to 81. He triumphed with his father in 70, bore jointly with him the office of censor beginning in 73, and was, besides, his colleague. Consequently, Titus shared in virtually every honor with the emperor during the A.D. seventies before Vespasian died, including the tribunicial power; not only in the tribunician authority, having the full authority of a Roman tribune, but also in seven consulships, seven joint-consulships, and a share of the office of censor.

When Titus eventually acceded to the throne in A.D. 79 nothing changed for Domitian. He was granted honors, but nothing else. Relations between the two brothers were most obviously cool and it is largely believed that Titus shared his deceased father’s opinion that Domitian was not fit for office.

Domitian was insatiable in his lusts, calling frequent commerce with women, as if it was a sort of exercise, klinopalaen, bed-wrestling; and it was reported that he plucked the hair from his concubines, and swam about in company with the lowest prostitutes. His brother’s daughter Flavia Julia was offered him in marriage when she was a virgin; but being at that time enamored of Domitia, he obstinately refused her. Yet not long afterward, when she was given to another, he was ready enough to debauch her, and that even while Titus was living.

Titus Flavius Vespasian the younger, having his father’s name, was the first prince who succeeded to the empire by hereditary right; and, after his return from Judea, having constantly acted as colleague with his father in the administration, he seemed to be as well qualified by experience as he was by ability for conducting the affairs of the empire. Before becoming emperor, tradition records that Titus was feared as the next Nero, a perception that may have developed from his association with Berenice, his alleged heavy-handedness as Praetorian prefect, and tales of sexual debauchery. But now, with a degree of virtuous resolution without prior example in history, he no sooner took into his hands the entire reins of government than he renounced every vicious immoral attachment. This turned out in the end to his advantage, and enhanced his praises to the highest pitch when he was found to possess no vicious propensities, but, on the contrary, the noblest virtues. Instead of wallowing in luxury, as before, he became a model of temperance; instead of cruelty, he displayed the strongest proofs of humanity and benevolence; and in place of lewdness, he exhibited a transition to the most unblemished chastity and virtue. In a word, the Romans had never known so sudden and great a change in the character of any mortal; and he had the peculiar glory to receive the appellation, the name and title of, “the darling and delight of mankind.”

The suddenness of his transformation raises immediate suspicions in the hearts of cynical people, yet it is difficult to know whether the historical tradition is suspect or if Titus was in fact adept at exchanging one persona for another. Once in office, however, both emperor and his reign were portrayed in universally positive terms. It is true that the ancient sources tend to heroicize Titus, yet based on all of the available evidence, his reign must be considered a positive one.

Under a prince of such a disposition, the government of the empire could only be conducted with the strictest regard for public welfare. Titus after becoming ruler committed no act of murder or of amorous passion; but showed himself upright, though plotted against; and self-controlled, though Berenice came to Rome again. He now dismissed her a second time, with mutual regret, upon his accession to the throne; he immediately sent Berenice away from the city, much against both their inclinations. This may have been because he had really undergone a change; for, to wield power as assistants to another is a very different thing for men from exercising independent authority themselves. In the former case, they are careless about the good name of the sovereignty and in their greed misuse the authority it gives them, thus doing many things that make their power the object of envy and slander; but actual monarchs, not false, knowing that everything depends on them, have an eye to good reputation also. It was undoubtedly this realization that caused Titus to say to someone whose society he had previously affected: “It is not the same thing to request a favor of another as to decide a case yourself, nor the same to ask something of another as to give it to someone yourself.”

He pursued the course of the Vespasian reform, begun in the previous reign, with the most ardent application; he capably continued the work of his father in establishing the Flavian dynasty and he maintained a high degree of economic and administrative competence in Italy and beyond. In so doing, he firmly established the role of the emperor as a dedicated, paternalistic autocrat, a model for rule that would serve Trajan and his successors well.

Titus was responsible for many architectural achievements during his tenure, including the Colosseum and plans for the Arch of Titus. It is clear that Titus sought to present the Flavians as the legitimate successors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Proof came through the issuing of a series of restoration coins of previous emperors, the most popular being Augustus and Claudius.

In money matters he was frugal and made no unnecessary expenditures, yet he did not punish anyone for following a different course. He violated no private right; and if ever a mortal man refrained from injustice, he did; no, he would not accept the allowable and customary gifts and contributions. Yet, in outstanding generosity, he was inferior to none of the princes before him. In the eyes of his pagan contemporaries his entertainments were of a kind more pleasing and enjoyable rather than extravagant orgies; and he surrounded himself with such excellent Friends, that the succeeding princes adopted them as most serviceable to themselves and the state. He was outstandingly good-looking, cultivated, and affable; Suetonius called him “the darling of the human race.”

He was so far from treating with any extraordinary kindness some of his old eunuchs who had been revelers with him, even though they were such accomplished dancers that they exercised an overwhelming power on the stage, gaining names of fame for themselves, that he would not so much as witness their accomplished performances in the crowded theatre.

His relations with his brother Domitian were bad, but in other ways his short rule was unexpectedly popular in Rome. Though Domitian was continually plotting against him, almost openly stirring up the armies to rebellion, and scheming to get away, yet Titus could not endure to put him to death, or to banish him from his presence; nor did he treat him with less respect than before. But from his first accession to the empire, he constantly declared him his partner and colleague in it, and that he should be his successor; begging of him sometimes in private, with tears in his eyes, to return the affection he had for him.

He appeared to be by nature extremely benevolent. He issued an edict confirming all gifts that had been bestowed upon any persons by the former emperors, thus saving them the trouble of petitioning him individually about the matter; for whereas all the preceding emperors after Tiberius, according to the example he had set for them, would not admit grants made by former princes to be valid, unless they each, one-by-one, individually received the reigning emperor’s personal authorization, he instead confirmed them all by one general edict, without waiting for any applications respecting them. Of all who petitioned for any favor, he sent none away without confident expectation. And when his ministers explained to him that he promised more than he could perform, he replied, “No one ought to go away downcast from an audience with his prince.”

Once at supper, reflecting that he had done nothing for anyone that day, he broke into that most memorable and admirable saying: “My friends, I have lost a day.”

In particular, he treated the people on all occasions with so much courtesy, that, on presenting a show of gladiators, he declared that he would conduct it not according to his own whim, but that of the spectators; and he did so, accordingly. He denied them nothing, and quite frankly encouraged them to ask what they pleased in the games. Supporting the cause of the Thracian team among the gladiators, he frequently joined in the popular demonstrations in their favor, but without compromising his dignity or doing anything wrong.

Having declared that he accepted the office of Pontifex Maximus, Chief Priest of Rome, for the purpose of preserving his hands undefiled, he faithfully adhered to his promise. For from that moment he was neither directly nor indirectly concerned in the death of any person, though he was sometimes justifiably irritated. He swore that he would perish himself, rather than be the cause of the destruction of any man. When two men of Patrician rank were convicted of aspiring to the empire, he only advised them to desist, saying that the sovereign power was determined by fate, and he promised them that if there was anything else that they desired of him, he would grant it. He also immediately sent messengers to the mother of one of them, who was at a great distance, and in deep anxiety about her son, to assure her of his safety. No, he not only invited them to dine with him, but the next day, at a show of gladiators, he purposely placed them close by him; and handed to them the weapons of the combatants to hold for his inspection. It is said likewise, that having had their nativities cast, their horoscopes, he assured them that a great calamity was impending, for both of them, but from another hand, and not from his.

During his reign Titus put no senator to death, nor was anyone else in fact ever slain by him during his rule. He himself never entertained cases based on the charge of maiestas nor allowed others to do so; for he declared: “It is impossible for me to be insulted or abused in any way. For I do nothing that deserves censure, and I do not care what is reported falsely. As for the emperors who are dead and gone, they will avenge themselves in case anyone does them a wrong, if they are in very truth demigods and possess any power.”

He also instituted various other measures designed to render men’s lives more secure and free from trouble, and he banished the informers from the City.

Among the calamities of the times, were the crowds of informers and their agents; a tribe of unscrupulous evildoers who had greatly increased under the license of former reigns. He frequently ordered these treacherous betrayers to be scourged or beaten with rods in the Forum, and then, after he had compelled them to pass through the Amphitheatre as a public spectacle, commanded them to be sold as slaves, or else banished to some rocky islands. And to discourage such practices for the future, among other things he prohibited legal actions to be successively brought over and over again under different laws for the same cause, or inquiry into the status of deceased persons after a certain number of years.

In his reign also a second false Nero appeared, who was an Asiatic named Terentius Maximus. He resembled Nero both in appearance and in voice, for he too sang to the accompaniment of the lyre. He gained a few followers in Asia, and in his eastward advance to the Euphrates River gathered a far greater number, and finally sought refuge with Artabanus the Second, the Parthian leader, who, because of his anger against Titus, not only received him but began making preparations to restore him to Rome.

Meanwhile, war had again broken out in Britain, and General Julius Agricola overran the whole of the enemy’s territory there. He was the first of the Romans we know to have discovered the fact that Britain is surrounded by water. It seems some soldiers, after rebelling, and slaying the centurions and a military tribune, took refuge in boats, and putting out to sea sailed round the western portion of the country as the wind and the waves happened to carry them; and since they approached again from the opposite direction, without realizing where they were, they put in again at the camps on the first side. After they were seized, Agricola immediately sent others to attempt the voyage around Britain, and learned from them, too, that it was an island. As a result, Titus received the title of Imperator for the fifteenth time, and Agricola received triumphal honors from Titus in Rome.

During the first beginning of the reign of this emperor some dreadful accidents happened, among them the first eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the memory of men. Vesuvius stands opposite Neapolis near the sea. Ancient writers, before this time, spoke of Vesuvius as being covered with orchards and vineyards, the middle of which was dry and barren.

This is what befell. In the seventy-ninth year of the Christian Era, 832 A.U.C., in Campania, remarkable and frightful occurrences took place; for a great fire suddenly flared up at the very end of the summer. Once Vesuvius was equally high at all points, and the fire rose from the center of it. Thick columns of smoke appeared, resembling what Tacitus plainly describes as numbers of huge men, quite surpassing any human stature—such creatures, in fact, as the Giants are depicted to have been—now on the mountain, now in the surrounding country, and again in the cities, wandering over the earth day and night and also swiftly gliding through the air. After this, terrible droughts and sudden and violent earthquakes occurred, so that the whole plain round about heaved and the peaks thrust suddenly up into the air.

There were frequent rumblings, some of them subterranean, that resembled thunder, and some on the surface, that sounded like bellowings; the sea also joined in the roar and the sky re-echoed it. Then suddenly, twenty-four August A.D. 79, a thunderous crash was heard, as if the mountains were tumbling in ruins; and first, huge stones were hurled aloft, rising as high as the very summits and falling down from heaven upon men, then came a great quantity of fire and endless smoke, so that all the air was darkened and the sun was entirely hidden, as if eclipsed, turning day into night and light into darkness. Some thought the Giants were rising again in revolt, for many of their forms were perceptible in the smoke at this time and, moreover, a sound like trumpeting horns was heard, while others believed the whole universe was dissolving into chaos or fire. Therefore they fled, some from the houses into the streets, others from outside into the houses, now from the sea to the land, and now from the land to the sea; for in their terror they thought any place where they were not was safer than where they were.

The eruption was accompanied by an earthquake, which destroyed several cities of Campania. Furthermore, it buried two entire cities, in particular Pompeii and Herculaneum, the former place while its populace was seated for safety in the theatre, while the lava, pouring down the mountain in torrents, in various directions overwhelmed the surrounding plains.

Among those to whom this dreadful eruption proved fatal was Pliny, the celebrated naturalist, whose curiosity to examine the phenomenon led him so far inside the outer edges of the danger, that, after doing so, he was suddenly overcome and could not escape.

While this was going on, an inconceivable quantity of ashes was blown out, which covered both sea and land and filled all the air. It caused much injury, of various kinds, at random, to men and farms and cattle, and in particular it destroyed all fish and birds. The burning ashes were carried not only over the neighboring country, but the actual amount of dust, all told, was so great that some of it reached as far as the shores of Africa and Egypt and Syria, and it also reached north to Rome, filling the air overhead and darkening the sun, and occasioning much fear there too, which lasted for several days, since the people did not know and could not imagine what had happened, but also, like those who were more close at hand, and witnessed the eruption, believed that the whole world was being turned upside down, that the sun was disappearing into the earth and the earth was being lifted to the sky. Now, these ashes at the time did the Romans no great harm, but later, they brought on them a terrible plague.

Tacitus relates that Mount Vesuvius has inexhaustible fountains of fire, for here alone have the fires broken out, whereas all the outlying areas of the mountain even now remain untouched by fire. Consequently, since the outside is never burned, while the central part is constantly growing brittle and being reduced to ashes, the peaks surrounding the center to this day still retain their original height, but the whole section that is on fire, having been consumed, in the course of time has settled and become concave; thus the entire mountain resembles a hunting arena—if we can compare great things to small. Its outlying heights support both trees and vines in abundance, but the crater is left abandoned entirely to the fire and sends up smoke by day and a flame by night; in fact, it gives the impression that quantities of incense of all kinds are being burned in it because of the smoke that rises. Now this goes on all the time, sometimes to a greater, and sometimes to a lesser extent; but the mountain often throws up ashes whenever there is an extensive settling in the interior, and discharges stones whenever it is ruptured by a violent venting of gas. It also rumbles and roars because its vents are not all grouped together but are narrow and concealed.

Such is Vesuvius, and he says these phenomena usually occur there every year. But all the other occurrences that have taken place there in the course of time, however notable they may have seemed to those who on each occasion observed them, because they were unusual, nevertheless would be regarded as trivial in comparison with what happened at this time, even if all had been combined into one. This is according to the account of Tacitus.

However, while Titus was absent from Rome and in Campania attending to the catastrophe that had befallen that region, which has ever since been celebrated for its volcano, in the following year, A.D. 80, a second conflagration, above ground, spread over very large sections of Rome; a devastating fire again destroyed large sections of the city, which continued during three days and three nights. Rome burned. It consumed the temple of Serapis, the temple of Isis, the Saepta, the temple of Neptune, the Baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon, the Diribitorium, the theatre of Balbus, the stage building of Pompey’s theatre, the Octavian buildings together with their books, and the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, all of these with their surrounding temples; and besides the fire a terrible pestilence, a plague, such as was scarcely ever known before. Hence the disaster seemed to be not of human but of divine origin; for anyone can estimate, from the list of buildings, how many others must have been destroyed. Men were in anguish and cursed the one true God of heaven for their pains and sores, Him whom Christians worship and adore, and did not repent of their deeds; nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. When the Acts of Nero’s reign were reversed after his death, an exception was made regarding the persecution of the Christians, and they continued to be persecuted.

Amid these many great disasters, Titus not only showed the concern which might be expected from a prince but even the affection of a father for his people; the one while comforting them by his proclamations, and the other while relieving them to the utmost of his power. In response to the eruption of Vesuvius the previous year in A.D. 79, Titus spent large sums to relieve distress in that area; he chose by lot, from among the men of consular rank, commissioners for repairing the losses in Campania. He accordingly sent two ex-consuls to them to supervise the restoration of the region, and bestowed on the inhabitants not only general gifts of money, but also the property of those who had lost their lives and left no heirs. The estates of those who had perished by the eruption of Vesuvius, and had left no heirs, he applied to the repair of the ruined cities. As for himself, with regard to the public buildings destroyed by fire in the City, he declared that nobody should be a loser but himself, saying, “I am ruined.”

Accordingly, he applied all the ornaments of his palaces to the decoration of the temples and purposes of public utility, and appointed several men of the equestrian order to superintend the work. Likewise, the imperial purse contributed heavily to rebuilding Rome. He accepted nothing from any private citizen or city or king, although many kept offering and promising him large sums; but he restored all the damaged regions from funds already on hand. Thus, for the relief of the people during the plague, he employed, in the way of sacrifice and medicine, all means available to him, both human and divine.

As a result of these actions, Titus earned a reputation for generosity and geniality. Even so, his keen financial intelligence must not be under-estimated, for he left the treasury with a surplus, as he had found it, and dealt promptly and efficiently with costly natural disasters. The A.D. third-century Greek historian, Cassius Dio, offered perhaps the most accurate and concise judgment of Titus’s economic policy: “In money matters, Titus was frugal and made no unnecessary expenditure.”

In other areas, the brevity of Titus’s reign has obscured discernment of any major emphases or trends in policy. As far as can be discerned from the limited evidence, senior officials and amici were well chosen, and his legislative activity tended to focus on popular social measures, with the army as a particular beneficiary in the areas of land ownership, marriage, and testamentary freedom to leave an inheritance to any beneficiary. In the provinces, Titus continued his father’s policies by strengthening roads and forts in the East and along the Danube.

In the same year, A.D. 80, Titus also set out to establish an imperial cult in honor of Vespasian. The temple, in which this cult was housed, the first imperial cult that was not connected with the Julio-Claudians, was begun by Titus; but it was not completed by him.

He also sought legitimacy through various economic measures, which he enthusiastically funded. His success was won largely by lavish expenditure, some of it through purely personal and very substantial generous giving but also by allocating some of the public bounty, such as the assistance to Campania after Vesuvius erupted in 79 and the rebuilding of Rome after the fire in 80. Vast amounts of capital were poured into extensive building projects in Rome, especially the Flavian Amphitheatre. He also pressed forward the speedy construction of new imperial warm baths to the south-east of the Amphitheatre and close to it, and began work on the celebrated Arch of Titus, a memorial to his Jewish victories, next to the Jewish quarter. Large sums were directed to Italy and the provinces as well, especially for road building.

In A.D. 81, when he finally completed the construction of the Flavian Amphitheatre, popularly known as the Colosseum, in celebration of additions made to the structure, he opened it with ceremonies lasting more than a hundred days. Having dedicated his Amphitheatre, Titus entertained the people with most magnificent spectacles, providing a grand one hundred day festival, with sea fights staged on an artificial lake, infantry battles in which men died, wild beast hunts, and similar activities. There, too, on the first day there was a gladiatorial exhibition and wild-beast hunt, the lake in front of the images having first been covered over with a platform of planks and wooden stands erected around it. On the second day there was a horse-race, and on the third day a naval battle between three thousand men, followed by an infantry battle. The names the combatants used were the “Athenians” and the “Syracusans”. The “Athenians” conquered the “Syracusans”, made a landing on the islet and assaulted and captured a wall that had been constructed around the monument. These were the spectacles that were offered, and they continued for a hundred days; but Titus also furnished some things that were of practical use to the people. He would throw down into the theatre from aloft little wooden balls variously inscribed, one designating some article of food, another clothing, another a silver vessel or perhaps a gold one, or again horses, pack-animals, cattle or slaves. Those who seized them were to carry them to the dispensers of the bounty, from whom they would receive the article named. He likewise exhibited a naval fight in the old Naumachia, the name of an arena built to be flooded, besides a combat of gladiators; and in one day brought into the theatre five thousand wild beasts of all kinds to be killed in sport. To omit no opportunity of acquiring popularity, he himself sometimes made use of the baths he had erected, without excluding the common people.

Most of what he did was not characterized by anything noteworthy, but in dedicating the hunting-theatre and the baths that bear his name he produced many remarkable spectacles. There was a battle between cranes and also between four elephants; animals both tame and wild were slain to the number of nine thousand; and women (not those of any prominence, however) took part in killing them. (It has been said that pagan Rome, because of the games, finally exterminated many species of rare wild animals in Europe, the Middle East, and north Africa.) As for the men, several fought in single combat and several groups contended together both in infantry and naval battles. For Titus suddenly filled this same theatre with water and brought in horses and bulls and some other domesticated animals that had been taught to behave in the liquid element just as on land. He also brought in people on ships, who engaged in a sea-fight there, impersonating the Corcyreans and Corinthians, killing each other in combat, for sport; and others gave a similar exhibition outside the city in the grove of Gaius and Lucius, a place which Augustus had once excavated for this very purpose.

After he had finished these exhibitions of violence and death, and had wept so bitterly on the last day that all the people saw him, he performed no other deed of importance; but the next day, in the consulship of Flavius and Pollio, after the dedication of the buildings mentioned, amid all these favorable circumstances, he was cut off by an untimely death; the Roman Suetonius says his death was more to the loss of mankind than himself. At the close of the public spectacles, he wept bitterly in the presence of the people, and then retired into the Sabine country, rather melancholy because a sacrificial animal victim had made its escape while he was sacrificing, and loud thunder had been heard while the atmosphere was serene.

While he and his brother were on the way, travelling outside Rome, at the first resting-place on the road, he was seized with a fever; and being carried forward in a litter, they said that he drew back the curtains, and looked up to heaven, complaining heavily that his life was taken from him, though he had done nothing to deserve it, for there was no action of his that he had occasion to repent of, except one. What that was, he neither disclosed himself, nor is it easy for us to guess. Mystery surrounded the last minutes before Titus’s death. But Domitian was not even to wait for his brother to die. Whether or not he had a hand in Titus’s death, Domitian did not wait for his brother to die. As Titus lay dying, he quickly returned to Rome and hastened to the Praetorian camp to be proclaimed emperor—so certain was he that his brother would be dead!—and there he had himself proclaimed emperor by the soldiers, and he was hailed as emperor.

Titus died on thirteen September, or fourteen September, A.D. 81, amid rumors that Domitian had poisoned him. But others insist that it is more likely he died of natural causes, from illness.

As soon as the news of his death was published, all the people mourned for him as for the loss of some near relative. On news of Titus’s death, the Senate assembled in haste, before they could be summoned by proclamation, and locking the doors of their Senate house at first, but afterward opening them, they gave Titus such thanks, and heaped upon him such praises, now that he was dead, as they had never done while he was alive and present among them; the Senate chose first to honor the dead emperor before elevating his brother, an early indication perhaps of Domitian’s future troubles with the aristocracy. His ascension to the throne came on the following day, fourteen September A.D. 81, 834 A.U.C.. With Titus dead, he was confirmed emperor by the Senate. At any rate, after waiting an extra day, Domitian received Imperium, the title Augustus, and tribunician power along with the office of Pontifex Maximus and the title pater patriae, Father of his Country.

Later, rumors circulated that Domitian may have had a hand in his brother’s death, possibly by poison. Gossip also ran rampant that the new emperor had at one point even plotted to overthrow his brother and take the throne for himself.

Suetonius records that Titus died on his way to the Sabine country of his ancestors, and that he passed away at the same watering-place that had been the scene of his father’s death, in the same villa where his father had died before him, on the Ides of September, the 13th of September; Titus Flavius Vespasianus died in September, A.D. 81 after only twenty-six months in office, having ruled two years, two months, and twenty days after he had succeeded his father; and in the one-and-fortieth year of his age. He was born in A.D. 39, was Roman Emperor from A.D. 79 to 81, and, had he lived for a longer time, Suetonius says that it is probable that his authority and example would have produced the most beneficial effects upon the manners of the Romans.

The common report is that he was put out of the way by his brother, for Domitian had previously plotted against him; but some writers state that he died a natural death. A competing tradition persistently implicated his brother, Domitian, as having had a hand in the emperor’s demise. His sudden death at age forty-one was supposedly hastened by Domitian, who became his successor as emperor, but the evidence is highly contradictory and any wrongdoing is difficult to prove, from the available evidence. The tradition is that, while he was still breathing and possibly had a chance of recovery, Domitian, in order to hasten his end, placed him in a chest packed with a quantity of snow, pretending that the disease required, perhaps, that a chill be administered, to break the fever. At any rate, he rode off to Rome while Titus was still alive, entered the camp, and received the title and authority of emperor, after giving the soldiers all that his brother had given them. Titus, as he expired, said: “I have made but one mistake.”

There is some disagreement on the meaning of Titus’s last words: “I have made but one mistake.” What this was he did not make clear, and no one else recognized it with certainty. Some have conjectured one thing and some another. Some imagine that he alluded to the connection which he had formerly had with his brother’s wife. Suetonius himself wrote that he

“gazed up at the sky, and complained bitterly that life was being undeservedly taken from him, since a single sin lay on his conscience.”

He added,

“this enigmatic remark has been taken as referring to incest with Domitian’s wife, Domitia; she herself solemnly denied the allegation.”

Suetonius did not believe this was the case because if she had had an affair, she would have boasted about it. The prevailing view in contrast agrees with those who say that he referred to his taking his brother’s wife, Domitia. But Domitia solemnly denied it on oath; which she would never have done, had there been any truth in the report; no, she would certainly have gloried in it, as she was forward enough to boast of all her scandalous intrigues. Some others, those not overly fond of the new emperor, took a more negative view of these words, that Titus meant he should have killed Domitian when he had the chance; and say that what he meant as his mistake was that he had not killed Domitian when he found him openly plotting against him, but had chosen rather to suffer that fate himself at his rival’s hands, and like a conquered general had actually surrendered the empire of the Romans to a man like Domitian, whose character will now be made clear.

Domitian himself delivered the funeral eulogy and had Titus deified.

Cassius Dio suggested that Titus’s reputation was enhanced by his early death. Again, his satisfactory record may also have been due to the fact that he survived his accession but a very short time, that is, short for a ruler, for he was thus given no opportunity for wrongdoing. For he lived afterward only two years, two months and twenty days, in addition to the thirty-nine years, five months and twenty-five days he had already lived at that time. In this respect, indeed, he is regarded as having equalled in reputation the long reign of Augustus, since it is maintained that Augustus would never have been loved had he lived a shorter time, nor Titus had he lived longer. For Augustus, though at the outset he showed himself rather harsh because of the wars and the factional strife, was later able, in the course of time, to achieve a brilliant reputation for his kindly deeds; Titus, on the other hand, ruled with mildness and died at the height of his glory, whereas, if he had lived a long time, it might have been shown that he owes his present fame more to good fortune than to merit, but we do not know. According to his contemporaries, he was found to possess no vicious propensities as emperor, but, on the contrary, the noblest virtues. There are too many who would prefer that he had failed in his resolve to be a good example to the people, and relapsed, so that his reputation for a good reign might be damaged, and his integrity not be a reproach to their own lack of moral and spiritual principle. It is beyond dispute that whatever good men do comes from almighty God, as does their ability to change their behavior to natural moral virtue.

Meanwhile, the holy Apostles of our Savior were scattered across the whole world. They traveled into every land, Teaching their message of salvation in the power of Christ, who had told them,

“Go and make disciples of all nations in my name”,

as written in the close of the Gospel According to Matthew. Thomas, according to tradition, was allotted Parthia, Andrew Scythia, and John Asia, where he stayed up to his death at Ephesus.

After the martyrdoms of Peter and then Paul, Linus, a Roman, was the first who received the episcopate at Rome, the first to be appointed Episcopos of Rome, whom Paul mentions in his second epistle from Rome to Timothy, in the salutation at the close of the epistle, saying,

“Eubulus and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, salute thee.”

And after Linus, Cletus, also called Anacletus, was elected to succeed him, and he was Episcopos of Rome, A.D. 76 through 88, during the reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian.

But the rest of the Apostles, who were harassed in innumerable ways with an intent to destroy them, and driven from the land of Judea, had gone forth to preach the gospel to all nations, relying on the aid of Christ, when he said,

“Go you, Teach all nations in my name.”

The whole body, however, of the Assembly at Jerusalem, having been commanded twelve years before by a divine revelation, given to men of approved piety there before the war, had removed from Jerusalem, and dwelt at a certain town eastward in Perea beyond the Jordan, called Pella. Those who believed in Christ at that time, having removed here from Jerusalem, as if holy men had entirely abandoned the royal city itself and the whole land of Judea, as Lot had removed from Sodom, the divine justice finally overtook them, the Jews, for their crimes against Christ and his Apostles, during the second year of the reign of Vespasian, totally destroying the whole generation of these evil-doers from the earth, leaving their descendants to mourn. Remember the words of our Lord, how he said,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.”
“But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”
“Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

And recall the words of the Apostle Paul,

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written,
‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’.
“No,
‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

And now Titus was dead, and eleven years and fourteen days had passed since the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem.

Domitian was emperor.

This chapter is the fourteenth part of a sixteen-part summary of the intervening years between the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul under Nero and the writing of the New Testament works of the Epistle of Jude, the Book of Revelation and the Letters of John the Apostle. Sources are linked below.

Historians and Bible scholars disagree on the precise dates of the intervening years. But in general they do agree that the entire historical period extends from about A.D. 67 through 90.
The summary of the intervening years continues in the next three chapters Sixty through Sixty-two. The concluding chapters Sixty-one, Sixty-two, and Sixty-three of this Harmony of the Gospel contain the First Letter of Clement and the Letter of Jude, and the Book of Revelation, and the Letters of John.
Note to the reader:
The text of this chapter is a redaction of the informative sources listed and linked below, rearranged, chronologically sequenced, collated, condensed, combined and adapted, while seeking to preserve much of their expressive language, and in some instances updating and improving both their translations and the written copy. Parallel constructions and duplications in the text have been kept to a minimum as far as possible without loss of information.

Ecclesiastical History III, chapters 12–13
Wars 7.5.3-7 [Book 7 [118-162]
Twelve Caesars: Vespasian 5–25
Twelve Caesars: Titus 5–11
Twelve Caesars: Domitian 1–2

The Twelve Caesars: Divus Vespasian
The Histories: Book IV (January - November, A.D. 70)
Vespasian: Roman Emperor (britannica.com)
Vespasian (roman-emperors.org)

The Twelve Caesars: Divus Titus
The Histories: Book V (A.D. 70)
Titus: Roman Emperor (britannica.com)
Titus (roman-emperors.org)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXIV (penelope.uchicago.edu)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXV (penelope.uchicago.edu)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXVI (penelope.uchicago.edu)

War, Book 7 (biblestudytools.com)

Eccesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, Book III, chapters 11, 12 and 13
Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org)

Chapter 11 Simeon ruled the Church of Jerusalem after James
Chapter 12 Vespasian commands the descendants of David be sought
Chapter 13 Anencletus, the second Bishop of Rome
Chapter 14 Avilus, the second Bishop of Alexandria

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Table of Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, in English translation, Joel Kalvesmaki 2013 (kalvesmaki.com)

List of 300 Septuagint Old Testament quotations in the New Testament, by Steve Rudd 2017 (bible.ca)

Table of LXX quotes and allusions in the New Testament


Church History (Eusebius): The Ecclesiastical History Of Eusebius Pamphilus: Bishop Of Caesarea, In Palestine (newadvent.org)

The Works of Flavius Josephus William Whiston, Translator, 1737 (sacred-texts.com)

Suetonius: Twelve Caesars: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by C. Suetonius Tranquilus; To which are added His Lives of the Grammarians, Rhetoricians, and Poets. The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D., Revised and corrected by T. Forester, Esq., A.M. (Gutenberg.org)

Tacitus: The Annals, Written 109 A.C.E. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
Tacitus: The Histories, Written 109 A.C.E. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (A.D. 69 through 70)

Sextus Aurelius Victor: Epitome De Caesaribus (roman-emperors.org)

Eutropius: Breviarium - Eutropius's Abridgement of Roman History (tertullian.org)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome (penelope.uchicago.edu)

Early Christian Writings A.D. 30 through 380 (earlychristianwritings.com)
See Biblical Canon and Apocrypha.

See these Conservapedia articles:

Titus, Domitian

See the following resources:

Josephus: The Essential Writings A Condensation of Jewish Antiquities and The Jewish War, Translated and Edited by Paul L. Maier, © 1988, Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel, Inc. P.O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501
Eusebius—The Church History: A New Translation with Commentary, Copyright © 1999 by Paul Maier, Published by Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel Inc., P.O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501


"cases based on the charge of maiestas"

crimes against majestic dignity.
Maiestas, literally, ‘greatness’, was used as an abbreviation for the crime of maiestas minūta populī Rōmānī, ‘the diminution of the majesty of the Roman people’, first made a law in 58 B.C., which could be deployed against any form of treason, revolt, or failure in public duty. Over a period of 120 years, convicted persons were increasingly liable to the death penalty with no opportunity given to retire into exile; eventually their property was also confiscated for the imperial tax (fiscus) and their names were obliterated from public record. No one could be sure of escaping even these last two consequences by committing suicide, since even the dead could be prosecuted. Many of those convicted were guilty of something, but it usually fell short of an attempt to subvert the state. Charges of maiestas were frequently made on apparently trivial grounds or as a complement to other charges, especially extortion and adultery. Titus virtually abolished the charge, because he himself never entertained cases based on the charge of maiestas nor allowed others to do so.
See Oxford Reference: maiestas (oxfordreference.com)

"As for the emperors who are dead and gone, they will avenge themselves in case anyone does them a wrong, if they are in very truth demigods and possess any power"

"demigods", literally, "half-gods", inferior deities.
In pagan antiquity, the demigods were human beings thought to have the attributes of a god, possessing supernatural powers and abilities, "giants in the earth"; a demigod was a lesser, or inferior deity, a hero or heroine, either good or evil, who, because of unusual ability, strength, intelligence, and accomplishment, beyond what might be expected of ordinary people, was necessarily supposed to be the offspring of the sexual union of a god or goddess and a mortal man or woman, as a way of explaining their extraordinary exploits and achievements and fame.
The Pharaohs and god-kings of antiquity were believed to be demigods; the "deified" emperors of Rome were said to have attained godlike power over the empire after their deaths, and were therefore considered to be demigods. What Titus said of his father Vespasian demonstrates his doubts about the Roman religious cult of the deified emperors, and is similar to what Joash the father of Gideon said to the men of his town, when they discovered that someone had demolished the altar of Baal: "If he is a god, let him contend for himself" Judges 6:28-31.
See Genesis 6:4. Some commentators interpret the "sons of God (or sons of the gods, elohim)" as angels who "kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation" and are now "reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day" (Jude 6 KJV and commentaries). They see in these texts evidence of pagan mythology and polytheism in the Bible.
However, against this interpretation, the Bible consistently calls the human descendants of Shem, of Abraham and of Isaac and Jacob—all of those entrusted with the revelation and worship of the one true God—"sons of God", as distinct from the pagan peoples, the "sons of men", who did not know and follow him. Thus, instead of them being spirit-beings lacking physical genetic material who had carnal relations with human women, these "sons of God" were those descendants of Adam and Shem who departed from the path of righteousness, broke faith and violated God's covenant by having illicit relations with pagan women "the daughters of men (pagans)" who worshiped other (nonexistent) gods: "they took to wife such of them as they chose" Genesis 6:2.
See 1 Kings 11:1-10;
Ezra 9:1-2;
2 Corinthians 6:14-18.
The grammatical structure of Genesis 6:4 shows that the "giants in the earth in those days", also translated as "Nephilim", were the "mighty men that were of old, the men of renown." The King James translators are responsible for rendering this passage with inserted italic words and arranged in such a way that it makes these giants seem to be the direct result of the union of the sons of God with the daughters of men; and this is the only verse in the entire Bible that (to some interpreters) appears to teach that angels (bodiless spirits, without genetic material) can have, or did have, sexual relations with (the physical bodies of) human women (angels "who neither marry nor are given in marriage" Matthew 22:30).
(See the sequence of elements in the Hebrew interlinear text of Genesis 6:4 - remember to read it from right to left ).
Mormon theology, in contrast, teaches that the sons of God are children, offspring, born of the sexual union of a physical flesh and blood God the Father with his physical flesh and blood wife, the Heavenly Mother. Mother in Heaven - Encyclopedia of Mormonism, author Elaine Anderson Cannon (eom.byu.edu).
See Mormons In Transition: Heavenly Mother: Origin of the Mormon Doctrine of a Mother in Heaven, By Robert M. Bowman Jr. (mit.irr.org)Robert Bowman examines in depth, discusses and refutes Mormon teaching on the Heavenly Mother, as being rooted in an erroneous conception of the nature of God, indirectly drawn from a distorted reading of kabbalistic mysticism.
See also
Compare commentaries on Jude 6, which does not mention angels having intercourse with women, and the doctrine of angels in the Book of Enoch 12:4, which does—angels, spirits, defiling themselves with women.
Grammatically, according to the Hebrew text, the giants mentioned in Genesis 6:2 are not the children, the directly resulting offspring, of unions formed when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them, but they were the dominant rulers and powerful men on earth, political giants, "mighty men of old, men of renown", who ruled as powerful regional overlords at the time when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and also afterward, at the time when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men: (compare the following texts of two English translations of Genesis 6:4, revised in complete accordance with the grammar of the Hebrew text:)
(RSV) "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them."
(KJV) "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same [giants] became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."
Again, according to the grammatical context:
"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward" (after the flood).
"There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that" (after those days, after the flood).
Compare Genesis 1:26; Psalm 82:6-7; Matthew 5:9; Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 3:38; John 1:12; John 8:41, John 8:44; Romans 8:14, Romans 8:16, Romans 8:19; Galatians 4:6; Philippians 2:15; 2 Corinthians 6:14, 2 Corinthians 6:18; 1 John 3:1 and 1 John 3:2
See the following articles:

"adept at exchanging one persona for another"

changing his image.
In psychology, a persona (Latin, actor's mask, character) is the outer personality assumed by an individual for purposes of concealment, defense, deception, or adaptation to his environment. Either sincerely or insincerely, the person "plays the role" assigned, by fate or by choice.
The sources appear to suggest that Titus deliberately chose a virtuous persona out of respect for the powerful office or genius of emperor of Rome, as a role model for the people and for his administration.
The Roman cult of reverence, if not actual worship, of the living emperor was more directed toward acknowledgement of the power of the ruling spirit of the office of emperor, the genius of the emperor residing in the man chosen by the gods or by God as ruler of the empire, a kind of superhuman, divine power or living spirit of authority that was assumed to possess him from the moment that he was acclaimed Imperator (compare Romans 13:1 and 1 Peter 2:13).
In ancient mythology, a genius was a supernatural being appointed to guide a person throughout life; a guardian spirit; a demon (also spelled daemon). They are not the same as the guardian angels, for according to St. Paul the genius of the emperor and all of the gods of Rome were "devils" or "demons", 1 Corinthians 10:20 and commentaries.
See The Gods of the Gentiles, John David Clark, Sr. (isaiah58.com) the author reasons well about the pagan gods as demons, but he implicitly rejects the clear, infallible testimony the Bible gives as confirming "proof texts" that Orthodox and Catholic doctrine is of God in these following passages:
1 Corinthians 12:3 and 1 John 4:1-6, 1 John 15.
Compare the warning in Matthew 12:24-37 and commentary on Matthew 12:32; also Isaiah 5:20-21.
See the Orthodox declaration of the Faith of the Church
Confession of Dositheus Patriarch of Jerusalem (1641-1707) (omologitis)
Text only (scroll down to Decree VII)
The Confession of Dositheus (Eastern Orthodox, 1672), Dennis Bratcher, ed.includes introduction and background
In this authoritative document of Orthodoxy is the declaration that the Blessed Son of God is Jesus come in the flesh. It also fulfills all of the Biblical criteria, listed in the Bible "proof texts" immediately above, which identify the Orthodox spirit represented in the document as being from God.
See the Catholic Vatican II document
Lumen Gentium—Documents of Vatican II.
This document represents a defense of the Catholic claim that the Catholic Church is holy, not pagan. It also fulfills all of the Biblical criteria, listed in the Bible "proof texts" immediately above, which identify the Catholic spirit represented in the document as being from God.
(The reader can also examine and compare any of the official Orthodox and Catholic documents readily available in print and online to see what they actually testify about Jesus Christ the Son of God. They unhesitatingly profess the Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed.)
In Moslem mythology a genius was a jinni or genie, (plural jinn), a spirit-being with intellect and will, either good or bad; and, according to the Qur'an, evil desert jinn were converted by hearing the preaching of the prophet Muhammad and converted other jinn.
Surah al-Jinn Chapter 72, verses 1 and 2 (al-islam.org)
The word "genius" comes from the Latin term for tutelary spirit. (See tutelary (thefreedictionary.com)) The genius loci were the spirits of place or location (singular genius locus). The genius of the emperor was the animating and ruling spirit of the Roman empire, influencing, even possessing the Roman emperors.
See the following:
See also
Were the Pagan Gods Actually Demons? The Scriptural View and Why It Matters, Msgr. Charles Pope (blog.adw.org)
Compare Daniel 10:12–11:1 and commentaries on 10:13 and 10:20.
In the first century, sacrifice offered to the genius of the emperor was sacrifice offered to a demon.
See Geaux Therefore - "Swear by the Genius of our Lord the Emperor": False Worship and Persecution of Christians, Rex Butler, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (nobts.edu) scroll down to see text Geaux Therefore

"It is true that the ancient sources tend to heroicize Titus"

"The suddenness of his transformation raises immediate suspicions": Modern historical writers are reluctant to accept the testimony of the Roman sources that Titus actually changed his personal moral code of conduct. This is perhaps understandable given the immoral behavior of emperors who preceded him, such as Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, Galba, Otho and Vitellius, and modern examples of presidents with reputations for immorality and criminal violations of the public trust such as John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. However, the same Roman sources that vilified Vitellius and other emperors for their excesses, and likewise faulted Titus for his cruel and immoral conduct during Vespasian's reign, offer glowing praise of his personal moral character after he became emperor, and this after his death, so no one can say these writers praise him with fawning sycophantic adulation out of fear of being killed for saying otherwise.
The modern atheistic and egalitarian envy of genuine greatness or admirable public moral rectitude impels many persons in the public media to attempt to slander and libel anyone who displays virtue or is in an enviable position of power. (See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: egalitarianism (plato.stanford.edu).) It is a form of hatred of the good and of moral-ethical leadership (auctoritas). They want no heroes or leaders of admirable character, and outwardly act as if they do not believe such people could possibly be what they seem to be and have tasked themselves with the mission of unmasking them as frauds who have betrayed the public trust. See Hypocrites. Many of them who despise and ridicule Christianity and the Ten Commandments as repressively intolerant bigotry, virtually hold public figures and governmental officials to a standard of essentially Judeo-Christian moral behavior and condemn them when they are charged with violations of it, calling for their removal. This is not because they admire virtue, but because they despise it and are disgusted by it, and because the very sight of genuine virtue is a hardship for them. (See Wisdom 2:12-24 "through the envy of the devil death entered the world.")
The Bible teaches, "there is none good, no not one" (Romans 3:10-18), "all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), and "the whole world lies in wickedness" (1 John 5:19). The Bible also testifies that men and women have done good, can do good, and will be rewarded for doing good (John 5:29; Romans 12:16-21; Galatians 6:10; 1 John 3:7-18; Matthew 25:31-46). The Bible testifies that even those without the law of Moses show that the law of God is written in their hearts, and that they have consciences which accuse or excuse them (Romans 2:14-16; Sirach 15:15-17).
Compare Deuteronomy 30:19 and Ezekiel 18:26-28. See Hebrews 6:4-6 and multiple translations of Hebrews 6:6, also commentaries on Hebrews 6:6. See John 15:4-6 and multiple translations of John 15:4, multiple translations of John 15:6, also commentaries on John 15:4, commentaries on John 15:6.
Moreover, according to the Bible the saved are those chosen elect whose names are written in the Book of Life, and those saved whose names are written there can sin so that their names are blotted out of the Book of life.
Names never written in the Book of Life cannot be blotted out of it, since it is impossible to blot out what was never there.
See Exodus 32:32-33; Deuteronomy 29:18-20; Matthew 7:24-27; Matthew 24:9-13, Matthew 44-51; Luke 10:19-20; Luke 19:12-26; Acts 1:17-20; 1 Corinthians 9:25-27; Philippians 4:3; 2 Peter 3:17; Jude 6; Revelation 2:5, Revelation 2:10, Revelation 2:25-26; Revelation 3:2-5, Revelation 3:15-21; Revelation 13:8; Revelation 17:7-8.
Critics of the doctrine of eternal security ("once saved, always saved") claim that these verses present devastating evidence supporting a counter-argument which demolishes that particular eternal-security assurance perseverance-of-the-saints teaching of Calvinism.
According to all of these scriptures the wicked can freely choose to do good, and the righteous can freely choose to do evil; the lost can be saved, and the saved can be lost; and it is impossible to "restore" persons to what they never had or possessed, but only to restore what they previously did have and once possessed and lost; and for those persons who did have and fell away and lost what they had, it is possible that they can be restored to their place again if they repent. See 1 John 1:9 and John 20:21-23.
It is not impossible that Titus was not only able to freely and completely change his moral behavior when he became emperor, but actually did so, as his contemporaries attest.
See article Ex-criminals Who Completely Turned Their Lives Around (businessinsider.com)
See the following:
Once Saved Always Saved - Fact or Fiction? (preparingforeternity.com)
See GOD'S SALVATION: LAW AND GRACE Catechism of the Catholic Church 1949-2051 (catholicdoors.com)
Rebuttal to Arguments Against Eternal Security, by Jamie Hardy (gospeloutreach.net)
Calvinism Refuted: "Perseverance of the Saints" (or "eternal security" or "once saved always saved") (bible.ca)
Arguments against Calvinism and Predestination, Ben Perry (people.cs.ksu.edu) "Is man purely evil and incapable of good deeds when intentions were not born of evil origins?"
Calvinism and Arminianism: Chapter 42 From the Encyclopedia of Practical Christianity, By: Dr. Robert A. Morey (christianfallacies.com) "Let there be no mistake on this point. The Protestant Theology of the Reformation was what we now call Calvinism."
A defense of the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional eternal security. Biblical proofs. The Catholic doctrine of salvation is condemned as the heresy of Semi-Pelagianism which Catholicism earlier condemned at an ecumenical council.
"The views of Arminius were condemned as heresy [at the Protestant Synod of Dort] and as a veiled attempt to return to Roman Catholicism. It was also pointed out that Arminius was only reviving the doctrine of semi-Pelagianism that had already been condemned as heresy by the Council of Orange in A.D. 529. … The Roman Church today shows itself to be heretical by teaching that which was condemned by the councils of the early church." —Dr. Robert A. Morey.
The local Council of Orange (France) 529 is not considered one of the ecumenical councils.

"another Nero imposter appeared"

After Nero's suicide in 68, there was a widespread belief, especially in the eastern provinces, that he was not dead and somehow would return. This belief came to be known as the Nero Redivivus Legend.
At least three Nero imposters emerged leading rebellions. The first appeared in A.D. 69 during the reign of Vitellius, and was executed by the governor of Cythnos according to the sentence passed on Nero by the Senate.
Sometime during the reign of Titus (79–81), another impostor appeared in Asia and sang to the accompaniment of the lyre and looked like Nero but he, too, was killed (Cassius Dio, Roman History LXVI.19).
The legend of Nero's return lasted for hundreds of years after Nero's death. Augustine of Hippo wrote of the legend as a popular belief in 422
"Others, again, suppose that he is not even dead, but that he was concealed that he might be supposed to have been killed, and that he now lives in concealment in the vigor of that same age which he had reached when he was believed to have perished, and will live until he is revealed in his own time and restored to his kingdom. But I wonder that men can be so audacious in their conjectures."
—(Augustine of Hippo, City of God XX.19.3).

"Meanwhile war had again broken out in Britain"

A.D. 79–81.
Cerealis, Agricola and the Conquest of Northern Britain, David Shotter

"Vesuvius...Pompeii"

7 August A.D. 79.
See following articles:

"first, huge stones were hurled aloft, rising as high as the very summits"

Compare
Isaiah 30:30 and commentaries;
Revelation 16:21 and commentaries.
Also
Revelation, Book of (historical exegesis): Vesuvius, and the Christian condemnation of sin
Josephus, Wars 5.6.3 (270-273) (biblestudytools.com)

"moreover, a sound like trumpeting horns was heard"

This sound, as modern witnesses to a plinian eruption can attest, is more like the sounding of trumpets of rams horns, like the sounding of the Jewish shofar, than the sounding of brass instruments. The orchestral tuba, sounding a long tone either vibrato or plain in the upper register, makes a similar sound.
See Exodus 19:12-19; 20:18; Leviticus 25:9; Numbers 10:1-10; Revelation 8:6-13; 11:15.
Audio Visual:
An Amazing Shofar Ram's Horn Service (bing.com/videos)
Audio:
Scary Volcano Eruption Sound 11 hours - You Tube (bing.com/videos) click off the Ad
Audio Visual: Vesuvius erupting
Remarkable footage of Mount Vesuvius erupting - 1929 (bing.com/videos)
August 24, 79 AD, Pompeii - Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius (snort.com/video)
(In answer to critics who characterize the theophany of Exodus 19:16–20:22 as a volcanic phenomenon, Mt. Sinai, and the mountain proposed by Simcha Jacobovici and James Cameron in the History Channel documentary The Exodus Decoded (2006) are not volcanoes. See Was Mount Sinai a Volcano? Glen A Fritz, 2016.)

"Diribitorium"

The Diribitorium was a public voting hall situated on the Campus Martius in Ancient Rome. In this building, the votes cast by the people were counted by election officials. Construction of the building was started by Marcus Agrippa but finished by Augustus in 7 B.C.

"As far as can be discerned from the limited evidence, senior officials and amici were well chosen"

Latin, amici "Friends" (singular amicus).
The word "amici" denotes those appointed personal Advisors—trusted politicians, generals, and praetorian prefects—who offered input on important matters.
Compare John 19:12.

"(It has been said that pagan Rome, because of the games, finally exterminated many species of rare wild animals in Europe, the Middle East, and north Africa.)"

See the following article:
"Beast-Hunts" in Roman Amphitheatres: The Impact of the Venationes on Animal Populations in the Ancient World, Elliot Kidd, Honors College

"received imperium"

that is, title to absolute power or authority; supreme command.
The word is Latin, meaning rule, authority.
In law, imperium is the right to command; authority to use the power of the state to enforce its laws; in ancient Rome, imperium was conferred on the emperor "by the authority of the Senate and the people of Rome."
(Imperium Roman law (britannica.com))

"Later, rumors circulated ... Suetonius records ... The common report is ..."

These three paragraphs are set after the confirmation of Domitian to reproduce for the reader an impression of the atmosphere generated by the continued rumors circulating after he was confirmed by the Senate and had begun to reign, following the immediate rumors that first spread when Titus's death was initially reported.
A similar technique of reiteration for effect was used earlier in this Harmony of the Gospel with the two accounts of the beheading of John the Baptist: first the event as it happened, then the retelling of it to Jesus by the disciples of John after they had buried his body (Mark 6:17-30; Matthew 14:3-13).

"totally destroying the whole generation of these evil-doers from the earth"

—Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Chapter 5.
Since the "whole generation of these evil-doers" has been totally destroyed from the earth, according to the testimony of the Christian historian Eusebius, then those who came afterward cannot be held guilty of the blood of Christ. They who came afterward are no more guilty than anyone else of all the descendants of Adam, "For all have sinned"—St. Paul, Romans 3:23.
Compare Matthew 27:25 and Luke 23:34.
See also WHO CRUCIFIED CHRIST? (cbn.com)
To this day the Jews mourn the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. World War II and the Holocaust included more than the Jews alone, and was a judgment on the whole world for its sins against God.
"Shame not a repentant sinner. Remember, we are all guilty." See Sirach 8:5
"We all are guilty": compare 1 Kings 8:46; 2 Chronicles 6:36; Job 25:4; Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:9 and 3:10; 5:12; 1 John 1:8.

"Remember the words of our Lord, how he said...Recall the words of Paul..."

See the following texts:

[The events of A.D. 70 through 81 are not included in the Conservative Bible New Testament.]

Sixty

Chapter 60 Historical texts

Titus Flavius Domitianus, the emperor of Rome and persecutor of the Christian Assembly, the Church, plainly known as Domitian, was born twenty-four October A.D. 51, the younger son of Vespasian and the younger brother and successor of the Emperor Titus. Domitian was twenty-nine years old when he took over the emperorship on the death of his brother, and he reigned as Roman Emperor from A.D. 81 to 96. After he became emperor, he had the assurance to boast in the Senate that he himself had bestowed the empire on his father and brother, and they had restored it to him. His first act was to enact Titus’s deification, no doubt reluctantly. In fact Domitian claimed that Vespasian and Titus had both denied him what should have rightfully been his rightful place as imperial colleague. He may have held a grudge against his brother and his father, but he understood that his own interests were best served by further celebrating the Flavian house. Construction of the temple begun by Titus in A.D. 80 to house the imperial cult of his father Vespasian was continued by Domitian.

Early in his reign, Domitian proved to be an able administrator and did not ignore the welfare of the people. Before his accession to the imperial authority, and for some time afterward, he scarcely ever gave the least grounds for being suspected of covetousness or avarice; but, on the contrary, he often provided practical proofs, not only of his justice, but his liberality.

He rebuilt many noble edifices which had been destroyed by fire, and among them the Capitol, which had been burned a second time, in 80; but all the inscriptions were in his own name, without the least mention of the original founders.

Before the Flavians came to power, much of Rome needed rebuilding, mostly due to fire, decay, and the failure of previous emperors to do anything about it. The great fire of A.D. 64, the civil wars of A.D. 68-69, the burning of Rome in December of 69, and another devastating fire in A.D. 80 had left Rome badly in need of repair. Domitian restored the gutted ruins of many public buildings, including the Capitol which had burned in A.D. 80; he responded by erecting, restoring, or completing some fifty structures, including the restored temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. He likewise erected a new temple to Jupiter the Guardian, Jupiter Custos, in the Capitol, and a Forum, now called the Forum of Nerva, as also the temple of the Flavian family, a new stadium, and an odeum for rhetoric, a concert hall for musicians and poets, and a naumachia, a place designed to be flooded for mock sea battles; the sides of the Circus Maximus, which had been burned, were rebuilt out of the stone dug from it.

For himself, because he did not like the old imperial palace, he built a magnificent new Flavian Palace on the Palatine Hill for official functions, and to the south he constructed the Domus Augustana where he held numerous banquets and receptions. Domitian also built several monuments in honor of Titus and finally completed the temple of Vespasian and Titus, changing the name of the structure to include his brother’s name and setting up his cult statue in the temple itself. In front of one of Rome’s Jewish quarters an arch was erected to honor Titus. Another arch was built on the Forum Romanum, where it can still be seen. His building program, ambitious and spectacular, was hardly matched by any other emperor.

He was tall in stature, his face modest, and very ruddy; he had large eyes, but was near-sighted; and naturally graceful in his person, particularly in his youth, except that his toes were bent somewhat inward. He was so aware of how much the modesty of his countenance commended him to others, that he once made this boast to the Senate, “So far, you have approved of both my disposition and my countenance.”

His baldness so much annoyed him, that he considered it an affront to himself if any other person was reproached with being bald, either in jest or in earnest; though in a small tract he published, addressed to a friend, “Concerning the Preservation of the Hair,” he uses for their mutual consolation the following words:

“ “Seest thou my graceful mien, my stately form?
Ouch oraas oios kago kalos te megas te;
“and yet the fate of my hair awaits me; however, I bear with courage this loss of my hair while I am still young. Remember that nothing is more fascinating than beauty, but nothing is shorter in duration.”

He so shrank from suffering any kind of fatigue, that he scarcely ever walked through the city on foot. In his military expeditions and on a march, he seldom rode horseback, but was generally carried in a litter. He had no inclination for personal military training exercises with arms, but he was very expert in the use of the bow. Many have often seen him kill a hundred wild animals, of various kinds, at his Alban retreat, and shoot his arrows into their heads with such dexterity, that he could, in two shots, plant them like a pair of horns, in each. He would sometimes aim his arrows at the hand of a boy, standing at a distance, as a mark, arm outstretched, fingers spread wide, with such precision that they all passed between the boy’s fingers, without hurting him.

In the beginning of his reign, he gave up the study of the liberal sciences, though he took care to restore, at great expense, the libraries which had been burned, collecting manuscripts from all parts of the empire, and sending scribes to Alexandria, either to copy or correct them. Yet he never took the trouble of reading history or poetry, or of employing his pen even for his own private purposes. He studied nothing but the Commentaries and Acts of Tiberius Caesar. His letters, speeches, and edicts, were all drawn up for him by others, yet he could converse with elegance, and sometimes expressed himself in memorable sentiments.

He once said, “I could wish that I was only as handsome as Metius fancies himself to be.”

And regarding the head of someone whose hair was partly reddish, and partly grey, he said that it was “snow sprinkled with mead.”

He remarked that the lot of princes was very miserable, “for no one believed them when they discovered a conspiracy, before they were murdered.”

In the beginning of his reign, he used to spend an hour by himself every day in private; and during that time he did nothing else but catch flies, and stick them through the body with a sharp pin. When someone inquired whether anyone was with the emperor, Vibius Crispus significantly answered, “Not so much as a fly.”

When he had leisure, he amused himself with dice in the morning, even on days that were not festivals. He went to the bath early, and then ate an enormous midday dinner, consuming so much that he seldom ate more at the evening meal than a Matian apple, with a draft of wine in a small flask. He gave frequent and splendid entertainments, but they were soon over, for he never prolonged them after sunset, and indulged in no revelry afterward. For, during the entire evening before bed-time, he did nothing else but walk by himself in private.

Soon after his advancement to the empire, and during his second consulship, he had a son by his wife Domitia Longina. It is enough to say that Domitian had had affairs with several married women. Domitia had been married to a senator, Aelius Lamia, but he was persuaded to divorce her; no, rather, she had divorced him so she could marry Domitian. He lost his son in the second year after becoming emperor, A.D. 82; and Domitian put away his wife Domitia by divorce, for being desperately in love with Paris, the actor, under suspicion of having committed adultery with him. He planned to put her to death, a common practice at the time, but the people began persistently requesting him to take her back to himself; he temporarily left his wife to live with his niece Flavia Julia, the daughter of his brother Titus; but a short time afterward, being unable to bear the separation, he took Domitia back to himself again, under the pretense of finally complying with the people’s persistently urgent requests to do so; and whom, the year following, A.D. 83, he honored with the title of Augusta, a title of divinity. And on taking his wife again, after the divorce, he declared by proclamation that he had recalled her to his pulvinar: among other meanings, besides a couch and a marriage bed, the pulvinar is a cushioned seat reserved for the visit of a god.

By those around him, at least early in his reign, he was viewed as being generous, possessing self-restraint, considerate of all of his friends, and conscientious when dispensing justice.

In Rome however, things were different. In legislation he was severe. In A.D. 83 Domitian displayed that terrifying pedantic adherence to the very letter of the law which should make him so feared by the people of Rome; and as censor he incurred critical censure for attempting to curb vices from which he himself was not immune.

As emperor, Domitian was to become one of Rome’s foremost personal managers of every aspect and detail of Roman life and culture, especially concerning the economy. Shortly after taking office, he raised the silver content of the denarius by about twelve percent, to the level earlier established by Augustus.

On another front, Domitian sought to promote grain production by calling for empire-wide limitations on viticulture, the growing of grapes for wine. On the occasion of a great abundance of wine, accompanied by a scarcity of grain, and supposing that the tillage of the ground was neglected for the sake of attending too much to the cultivation of vineyards, he published a proclamation forbidding the planting of any new vines in Italy, and ordering the vines in the provinces to be cut down, nowhere permitting more than one half of them to remain. But he did not persist in the execution of this project. This edict ordaining destruction of half the provincial vineyards was typical: it was designed to encourage the growing of grain and to limit the importing of wine into Italy, while, at the same time, no increased production was permitted; but Domitian was unable to carry the matter through. Pliny the Younger’s letters to Trajan afterward show that Domitian’s administrative decisions were not usually revoked, but this edict met with immediate opposition and was never implemented.

Before his accession to the imperial authority, and during some time afterward, Domitian seldom ever provided the least grounds for being suspected of covetousness or avarice. To all about him he was generous, even profusely so, and he recommended nothing more earnestly than to avoid doing anything harsh. He would not accept the property left to him by those who had children. He also cancelled a provision for a legacy bequeathed by the will of Ruscus Caepio, who had ordered his heir to make a present of a sum of money every year to each of the newly elected senators on their first assembly. He established forms of statutes of limitation. He exonerated all those who more than five years before had been under prosecution from the treasury, suits still pending; and he would not permit lawsuits to be renewed, unless done within a year, with the additional condition that the prosecutor should be banished if he could not make good his case. He pardoned the secretaries of the quaestors for what was past, for having engaged in trade according to custom, contrary to the Clodian law restricting the private business dealings of the scribes of quaestors. The portions of commandeered land left unassigned after it was divided among the veteran soldiers, he granted to the ancient possessors, as belonging to them by prescription. He put a stop to false prosecutions by informers in the treasury against property owners for the purpose of unjustly seizing their estates, by severely punishing the prosecutors. And much notice was taken of this saying of his: “A prince who does not punish informers, encourages them.”

But now Domitian was determined to equal the military achievements of his predecessors. While the military abilities of Vespasian and Titus were genuine, those of Domitian were not. Partly as an attempt to correct this political weakness, Domitian frequently became involved in his own military exploits outside of Rome. He wanted to be known as a conqueror. Although, unlike Vespasian and Titus, he was not a military man, he considered himself one, and constantly sent messages to the generals in the field with advice and recommendations. He personally undertook several expeditions, some from choice, utterly unprovoked and unnecessary, and some from genuine necessity, because of threats to the empire from enemies foreign and domestic.

In the same year A.D. 83 he completed the conquest of the Agri Decumates in the reentrant angle of the Rhine, the lands beyond the upper Rhine and upper Danube, which his father Vespasian had begun. Having no personal experience himself and hoping to claim some credibility with the army, he embarked on a victorious campaign to Germania to engage the Catti in A.D. 83. This campaign against the Chatti was unprovoked, and he was bitterly aware of the ridicule that greeted his sham triumph over Germany. He also claimed a triumph in A.D. 83 for subduing the Catti in Gaul, but that conquest was illusory. Tacitus derided Domitian’s victory against the Chatti as a “mock triumph”. More campaigns against the Catti followed in western Germany, from A.D. 83 through 85. Moving against tribes like the Chatti, he drove the empire’s frontier to the rivers Lahn and Main, building border fortifications called limes in Germany. The greatest threat, however, remained on the Danube, from the Dacians under King Decebalus.

Meanwhile, despite the results of his shallow military achievements, shortly after his initial victories over the Catti, in A.D. 84 he raised the pay of the army from three hundred to four hundred gold sesterces, a fact that would naturally make him popular with the soldiery. He earned the respect of the army when he became the first emperor since Augustus to give them a raise, although by that time a pay raise had perhaps become very well necessary, as over time inflation had reduced the soldiers’ effective income.

Domitian’s brother Titus had an only child, a daughter by his second marriage, Flavia Julia; and she had incestuously married Flavius Sabinus, who was her cousin, and Domitian’s cousin. In A.D. 84, Domitian put Flavius Sabinus to death, one of his own cousins, simply because, on his being chosen to that office at the consular election, the herald, in proclaiming his consulship, had called him imperator instead of consul: by a blunder, the public crier had proclaimed him to the people not consul, but emperor. The execution of his cousin Flavius Sabinus on this frivolous pretext as being immediate evidence of a subversive plot against him was an isolated event, not part of a general pattern of executions; and his widow Flavia Julia was afterward seen publicly as Domitian’s mistress; after Sabinus’s death in A.D. 84 she lived openly as mistress of her uncle Domitian. But after she had lost both her father and her husband, he loved her most passionately, and openly; so much that she was with child by him. And he was the occasion of her death, by forcing her to procure a miscarriage, an abortion, killing both the mother and the child.

In A.D. 85, Annianus, who was the first Episcopos of Alexandria, died, after having filled that office for twenty-two years. He was succeeded by Avilius, who was the second Episcopos of that city, who had been ordained by St. Luke some time before his death in 84.

According to the tradition of the Christian Assembly, the holy Evangelist and Apostle Saint Luke, after the repose of the body of his teacher Saint Paul, spread the Gospel of Christ in Italy, Dalmatia, Gaul, and especially, Macedonia, in which he had labored before for several years. He also evangelized Achaia, which borders on Macedonia. Then, when he was already quite elderly, the Apostle Luke undertook a journey to Egypt. And having first passed through all of Libya, he arrived in Egypt, and there he labored greatly and endured many afflictions for the sake of the holy name of Jesus, and in the Thebaid of Egypt he converted many to Christ. In the city of Alexandria, he ordained a certain Abilius, called Avilius, as Episcopos and designated him to (eventually) succeed Annas, Annianus, who had been ordained by the Evangelist Mark, and had faithfully carried out his ministry as Pope of Alexandria for twenty-two years.

Then, returning to Greece, St. Luke again set up Christian assemblies there, primarily in Boetia, ordained Presbyters and Deacons, and healed those sick of body and soul. Like the Apostle Paul, his friend and mentor, Saint Luke fought the good fight, finished his course and kept the Apostolic Faith to the end. At the age of seventy-four or eighty-four, about the year 84, it is said that he died a martyr’s death in Achaia, hanged and crucified on an olive tree instead of a cross. His precious body which had been a temple of the Holy Spirit of truth was buried in Thebes, the principal city of Boetia.

Then in A.D. 85, Annianus, who was the first Episcopos of Alexandria, died, after having filled that office for twenty-two years. He was succeeded by Avilius, who was the second Episcopos of that city, having been designated by St. Luke to succeed Annianus when he died.

Meanwhile, Cnaeus Julius Agricola, seven years the governor of Britain, was successfully campaigning against the Picts. He had already won some victories in various parts of Britain and now advanced into northern Scotland where at Mons Graupius he gained a significant victory over the Picts in battle. Then in A.D. 85 Agricola was suddenly recalled from Britain; the emperor recalled Agricola, a victorious general in Britain, because he became too popular with the people, the army, the Senate, and the Praetorians, making it conceivable that the undefeated general would eventually challenge Domitian’s government if he should continue to win outstanding victories. The possibility that he was virtually on the brink of actually achieving the final conquest of Britain as the crowning achievement of his military career has been the subject of much speculation, and we will never know; it is certain that recalling Agricola from Britain made the possibility that he would be the one to achieve the final conquest of Britain impossible. It appears that Domitian, so eager to prove himself a great conqueror, was in fact jealous of Agricola’s success.

In his book On Britain and Germany Agricola’s son-in-law Tacitus recounts the tenuous relationship between Agricola and Domitian. The general’s victories in Britain put the emperor in a precarious position, as he was torn between pride and jealousy, torn between keeping up appearances to the public with pride in a Roman victory, and jealousy because of his own failure as a commander. He tells us that Agricola was received by Domitian with the smile on his face that so often masked a secret disquiet; that he was bitterly aware of the ridicule that had greeted his own sham triumph over Germany. On returning to Rome, the general was offered the governorship of Syria, but he refused. And now, the Roman general Cnaeus Julius Agricola, in spite of his having received triumphal honors from Titus, for the rest of his life lived not only in disgrace but in actual want, because the deeds which he had wrought were thought by Domitian too great for a mere general, but belonged only by right to an emperor, to one who was favored by the gods. The circumstances surrounding the recall of Agricola and the popular suspicions that this had been done only because of jealousy, only further fueled Domitian’s hunger for military glory. This time he turned his attention to the kingdom of Dacia.

The Dacians under their king Decebalus had crossed the Danube onto the northern frontier in raids in which they even killed the governor of Moesia, Oppius Sabinus, a man of consular rank. On hearing of the death of Oppius Sabinus, Domitian sent the first of two expeditions against the Dacians. The emperor visited Moesia in A.D. 85 shortly after Sabinus had been killed by the invaders. Domitian led his troops to the Danube region, but to Cornelius Fuscus, prefect of the Pretorian cohorts, he entrusted the conduct of that war. Cornelius Fuscus eagerly sought some means of trying to avenge Sabinus’s death. At first these armies suffered another defeat at the hands of the Dacians. However, the Dacians were eventually driven back. Fuscus successfully drove the Dacians back across the border in mid-85, prompting Domitian to return to Rome soon after and celebrate an elaborate triumph, and Domitian returned to Rome, leaving his armies to fight.

As emperor, Domitian was hated by the aristocracy. His reach extended well beyond the economy. Two years before, in A.D. 83 Domitian had begun to display that terrifying adherence to the very letter of the law which should make him so feared by the people of Rome. In spite of his private vices, and his own personal lack of moral values, he now set himself up as a reformer of morals and religion. Now late in A.D. 85, in a move to increase his power over the Senate, Domitian proclaimed himself censor perpetuus, “perpetual censor”; he made himself censor for life, which granted him near unlimited power over the assembly, with a general supervision of conduct and morals. The move was without precedent and, although largely symbolic, it nevertheless revealed Domitian’s obsessive interest in all aspects of Roman life. Domitian’s administration is judged by some historians to have been sound and efficient, though at times his policy was deemed to be excessively pedantic; for example, he insisted on spectators at public games being properly dressed in togas.

But Domitian was more and more being understood as a tyrant, who did not even refrain from having senators who opposed his policies assassinated. But his strict enforcement of the law also brought its benefits. Corruption among city officials and within the law courts was reduced. In the administration of justice he was diligent and assiduous; and he frequently sat in the Forum as a natural course, to cancel those judgments of the court of the Centumviri, The Hundred Men, which had been procured through favor, or interest. He occasionally cautioned the judges of the court of recovery to beware of being too ready to admit claims for freedom brought before them. He set a mark of infamy on the records of judges convicted of taking bribes, as well as on the records of their legal advisors. He likewise incited the tribunes of the people to prosecute a corrupt aedile for extortion and to desire the Senate to appoint judges for his trial. He likewise took such effectual care in punishing magistrates of the city, and governors of provinces, guilty of misconduct in public office, that they never were at any other time more moderate or more just; for the general standard of justice rose to such an unprecedented level of unrelenting strictness, that Suetonius emphatically points out since the end of his reign how many of these provincial governors and magistrates have been charged with judicial corruption, and crimes of various kinds.

Having taken on himself the reformation of public conduct, he restrained the presumptuous abuse by the common populace of sitting indiscriminately with the knights in the amphitheatre in disregard of their dignity and authority. He suppressed scandalous libels, published to defame persons of rank, of either sex, and inflicted on their authors a mark of infamy on their personal records. He expelled a man of quaestorian rank from the Senate, for compromising the dignity of his position by practicing mimicry and dancing. He barred infamous women of bad character from the use of litters, and the right of receiving legacies, or inheriting estates. He struck from the list of judges a Roman knight for taking again to himself his wife, whom he had divorced and prosecuted for adultery.

Seeking to impose his intuitive sense of morals, he attempted to raise the standards of public morality by forbidding male castration. He prohibited the castration of males, and reduced the price of the eunuchs who were still left in the hands of the dealers in slaves, and, admonishing homosexual senators, he penalized senators who practiced homosexuality. He condemned several men of the senatorian and equestrian orders, on the basis of Scantinian law, charging them with maiestas, “the degradation of the majesty of the Roman people”; also censuring the Vestal Virgins for, among other indiscretions, incest.

During his reign three Vestal Virgins, convicted of immoral behavior, were put to death for maiestas. It is true that these stringent rules and punishments had once been observed by an approving Roman society. But “times had changed”: that dishonestly indirect expression which avoids blaming the people directly for their own insolent behavior, making them, instead, misled, innocent dupes and victims of a faceless, impersonal, pervasively immoral cultural climate; and quite simply it means that moral standards once admired and praised by the people as standards of Roman virtue were no longer popular but generally held in contempt; and the public now tended to see punishments of the Vestals for immoral acts of incest as mere acts of cruelty; due to the flagrant vices of the times, lust and luxury, rooted in the pervasive licentiousness which had so long prevailed; which his father Vespasian as imperial censor had zealously attempted to correct in his campaign to effect a wholesome national reformation of morals. The lewdness of the Vestal Virgins, which had been overlooked by his father and brother, he punished severely, but in different ways: offences committed before his reign, with death, and those since its commencement, according to ancient custom. For to the two sisters called Ocellatae, he gave liberty to choose the mode of death which they preferred, and banished their paramours; but Cornelia, the president of the Vestals, was acquitted of a charge of incontinence, which is unrestrained sexual behavior.

And to preserve pure and undefiled reverence due the gods, he ordered the soldiers to demolish a tomb, which one of his freedmen had erected for his son out of stones designated for the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and to sink in the sea all the bones and relics buried in it.

But he did not long persevere in this course of Roman clemency and justice, for he soon more readily fell into cruelty than into avarice. It seems certain that his own increasing cruelty and ostentation were the chief grounds of his unpopularity, rather than any military or administrative incompetence.

Domitian’s financial difficulties are a much disputed question. Shortly after taking office, he had raised the silver content of the denarius by about twelve percent, only to devaluate it now in A.D. 85, when the imperial income must have proved insufficient to meet military and public expenses. But the finances of the empire were further organized to the point that imperial expenditure could at last be reasonably forecast. The economy, therefore, offered a ready outlet for Domitian’s autocratic tendencies. Always worried about state finances, he at times displayed near neurotic meanness.

His building program had been heavy: Rome received a new Forum, later called Forum Nervae, and many other works. Then there were the expenses of Domitian’s new house on the Palatine Hill and his vast villa on the Alban Mount. Meanwhile, the increased army pay was a recurrent cost. With the augmentation of pay lately granted to the troops, and having exhausted the imperial treasury by the expense of his buildings and public spectacles, he made an attempt at reducing the size of the army, in order to lessen military costs. But after reflecting that this measure would expose him to the assaults of the barbarians, while it would not be enough to extricate him from his financial embarrassments, he had recourse to plundering his subjects by every form of extortion. Confiscations and the rigorous collection of taxes soon became necessary. Cruelty came earlier in his reign than greed, but eventually he regularly confiscated the property of his victims. The estates of the living and the dead were confiscated and held on the grounds of any accusation, by anyone who preferred to do so. The unsupported allegation of any one person, relative to a word or action construed to refer to the dignity of the emperor, was also sufficient. Inheritances, to which he had not the slightest claim, were confiscated, if there was found so much as one person to say that he had heard from the deceased when living that he had made the emperor his heir.

He was able to maintain to the end of his reign the debased currency standard of A.D. 85, which was still higher than the standard under Vespasian. There were failures, but he also left the treasury with a surplus, perhaps the best proof of a financially sound administration, built on the ruinous injustice of a corrupt policy of extortion of confiscated estates and inherited fortunes. Probably only his confiscations averted state bankruptcy in the last years of his reign. And under his rule Rome itself became yet more cosmopolitan.

Beyond Rome, Domitian taxed provincials rigorously and was not afraid to impose his will on officials of every rank. Consistent with his concern for the details of administration, he also made essential changes in the organization of several provinces and established the office of Curator to investigate financial mismanagement in the cities. Other evidence points to a concern with civic improvements of all kinds, from road building in Asia Minor, Sardinia and near the Danube to building and defensive improvements in North Africa.

There had been two years of campaigns against the Catti in western Germany from A.D. 83 to 85. After several battles with these Chatti and the Daci, Domitian had celebrated a double triumph in 85. In the First Dacian War, initial success against the aggressors of Decebalus by Domitian’s Praetorian prefect, Cornelius Fuscus, allowed the emperor to celebrate his second triumph at Rome in A.D. 86.

However, Cornelius Fuscus was killed trying to avenge the death of Oppius Sabinus from Dacian raiders the previous year. Early in 86, Fuscus embarked on an expedition into Dacia. As Fuscus’s men marched into Dacia, the forces of Decebalus attacked from all sides, and Fuscus attempted to rally his men, but was unsuccessful; which resulted in the complete destruction of the Fifth Legion Alaudae, the Fifth Legion Larks, near Tapae; Fuscus was killed, and the Legio quinta Alaudae was completely destroyed; and the battle standard of the Praetorian Guard was lost. To the Roman Praetorians, the loss of that standard was more devastating than the destruction of an entire legion. They grieved more over its loss than over the loss of their men. It was a tall stick or pole, a long rod, decorated and worshiped by them, and it did nothing either good or bad; it took no revenge on those who had seized it, and it could not save itself when it was lost. The Praetorian cohorts would be restored, and another standard made for their worship, but the Fifth Alaudae was never formed again.

An ardent supporter of traditional Roman religion, Domitian also closely identified himself with Minerva and Jupiter, publicly linking Jupiter to his regime through the Ludi Capitolini, the Capitoline Games, which he began in A.D. 86. Domitian liked the Games, in particular, chariot races, even adding two new teams of drivers to them, Golden and Purple. Held every four years in the early summer, the Games consisted of chariot races, athletics and gymnastics, and music, oratory and poetry. Contestants came from many nations, and no expense was spared; the emperor himself awarded the prizes. In the same manner, Domitian offered frequent and elaborate public shows, always with an emphasis on the innovative: in fact he loved public entertainments of any kind, especially those involving women combatants and dwarves. He frequently entertained the people with the most magnificent and costly shows, not only in the Colosseum, but in the Circus; where, besides the usual races with chariots drawn by two or four horses harnessed side by side, he exhibited a mock military engagement between both horse and foot, and a sea-battle in the Colosseum, with deaths on both sides. The basement of the Colosseum built by his father was flooded and used for a naval battle. To the four former teams in the Circensian games, he added two new ones, the Gold and the Scarlet. The people were also entertained with the chase of wild beasts. There were wild beast hunts and the combat of gladiatorial contests held even at night by torchlight. Nor did only men fight in these spectacles, but women too; and there were competitions to the death between infantry and cavalry.

He constantly attended the Questorian Games, the games given by the quaestors, those in charge of the public treasury and expenditures, games which for some time had been discontinued, but were revived by him; and on those occasions, he always gave the people the liberty of demanding two pairs of gladiators out of his own school of gladiators, who appeared last in the program dressed in elegant court livery. Whenever he attended the shows of gladiators, a little boy dressed in scarlet, with a grotesquely small head, stood at his feet, with whom he used to talk very much, and sometimes with great seriousness. We have been assured that he was overheard asking this boy if he knew why in his latest appointment he had made Metius Rufus governor of Egypt.

Making a vast new lake near the Tiber, and building seats round it, he presented the people with naval battles, performed by fleets almost as numerous as those usually employed in real engagements. And he witnessed them himself during a very heavy rain. He likewise celebrated the Secular games, fixing their numerical dating not from the year in which they had first been exhibited by Claudius, as, for example, the twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh Secular games, and so on, but from the time of Augustus’s first celebration of them forty years before, numbering the same ones instead as, for example, the sixty-fifth, sixty-sixth, sixty-seventh Secular games, and so on. In these, on the day of the Circensian sports, in order to have a hundred races performed, he reduced each course of laps from seven rounds to five.

He even likewise founded and instituted, in honor of Jupiter Capitolinus, a solemn contest in music to be performed every five years, besides horse-racing and gymnastic exhibitions, with more prizes than were later allowed in the reign of Trajan: a festival of music, horsemanship, and gymnastics, to be held every five years. There was also a public performance in elocution, rhetoric both Greek and Latin; and besides the musicians who sung to the harp, there were others who played pieces in concert, solos without vocal accompaniment.

Young girls also ran races in the Stadium, at which he presided wearing his imperial buskins, dressed in a purple robe made according to the Grecian fashion, and on his head a golden crown bearing the effigies, or figures, of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; with the flamen of Jupiter, and the college of priests sitting by his side in the same dress, except that their crowns also had his own image on them. He also celebrated on the Alban Mount every year the Quinquatrus, the festival of Minerva, for which he had appointed a college of priests, and out of it was chosen by lot persons to preside as their president, whose chief duty was to entertain the people with extraordinary hunts of wild beasts, and stage-plays, besides sponsoring contests for prizes in oratory and poetry.

He made many novel changes in common practices. He prohibited actors from acting in the public theater, but permitted them to practice their art in privately owned houses of wealthy patrons. Three times he bestowed on the people a bountiful largess of three hundred sesterces for each man; and, at a public show of gladiators, a very plentiful feast. He abolished the imperial custom of Sportula, the little baskets of food once distributed to the spectators of the games at state expense, and revived instead the old practice of regular banquets. At the festival of the Seven hills of Rome, he distributed large covered baskets of prepared foods, big hampers of provisions, to the senatorian and equestrian orders, and smaller baskets to the common people, prompting and encouraging them to eat by setting the example for them with his first taste, the inaugural bite. The day after, he scattered among the people a variety of cakes and other delicacies to be scrambled for, food showered down on the public from ropes stretched across the top of the Colosseum; and when most of them fell on and around the seats of the common crowd, he ordered five hundred tokens to be thrown into each row of the benches of the senatorian and equestrian orders. Thus the emperor sought to underscore not only Rome’s importance but also his own and that of the Flavian regime. However, while both Domitian and the public enjoyed these entertainments, their cost would eventually take a heavy toll on his and the empire’s finances. On the other hand, there were notable successes resulting from the policies of his administration. It might be fairer to criticize him for an entirely different matter: undue paternalism.

For a period of time during his administration, there was a strange mix of virtue and vice; his vices were balanced by his virtues; but, as we may reasonably suppose concerning his character, his virtues themselves at last degenerated into vices, he being inclined to avarice from a persistent lack of funds to avoid bankruptcy and establish a financially sound administration with a surplus balance in the state treasury, and to cruelty through constant fear of assassination by ambitious men who had no fear of destabilizing the government at the risk of civil wars, and his own overwhelming, obsessive dread of death, his own mortality. Like the rest of mankind, he, through fear of death, was subject to lifelong bondage to him who has the power of death, that is, the devil.

He had long entertained a suspicion of the year and day when he should die, and even of the very hour and manner of his death; all of which he had learned from the Chaldeans, professional astrologers from Babylon, when he was a very young man. His father Vespasian once at supper laughed at him for refusing to eat some mushrooms, saying that, if he already knew his fate, then he would be more afraid of the sword. Being, therefore, in perpetual apprehension and anxiety, he was keenly alive to the slightest suspicions, to such a degree that he is thought to have withdrawn the edict ordering the destruction of the vines chiefly because the copies of it which were dispersed had the following lines written on them:

Kaen me phagaes epi rizanomos epi kartophoraeso,
Osson epispeisai Kaisari thuomeno.
“Gnaw thou my root, yet shall my juice suffice
To pour on Caesar’s head in sacrifice.”

It was from the same principle of fear that he refused a new honor, devised and offered him by the Senate, though he was greedy for all such compliments. It was that, as often as he held the consulship, Roman knights, chosen by lot, should walk before him, clad in the Trabea, the purple-striped toga, with lances in their hands, among his lictors and his apparitors, the lictors being guards who carried the fasces as symbol of their office and attended chief magistrates, and the apparitors being civil court officials. As the time of the danger which he apprehended drew near, he became daily more and more disturbed in mind; so that he even lined the walls of the porticos in which he used to walk, and the gallery where he took his daily walks, with the stone called Phengites, moonstone, highly polished, so that by the reflection he could see every object behind him. His paranoia led him to take extreme measures such as employing informers, as did Nero before him. As a means to obtain information on possible plots or rebels, he ordered interrogators to cut off the hands, or scorch the genitals, of prisoners, piercing them with fire.

He complained that the lot of princes was very miserable, “for no one believed them when they discovered a conspiracy, before they were murdered.”

However, plots against the emperor did exist. In September of A.D. 87 several senators who were tools in a conspiracy were executed. The Senate was almost stripped entirely of its power, and his paranoia led to the execution of both senators and imperial officers for the most trivial of offences on the charge of maiestas. Out of jealousy, he had Sullustius Lucullus, governor of Britannia, executed for naming a new type of lance after himself, the lucullan, instead of naming it in honor of Domitian. But there are hints of more general trouble about A.D. 87.

His military and foreign policy was not uniformly successful. Domitian was the first emperor since Claudius to campaign in person. Both in Britain and in Germany advances were made by the Romans early in the reign, and the construction of the Rhine-Danube limes, the “fortified line”, owes more to Domitian than to any other emperor. In Britain, similar propaganda, of news of advances made, masked the withdrawal of Roman forces from the northern borders to positions farther south, a clear sign of Domitian’s rejection of expansionist warfare in the province. But consolidation in Scotland was halted by serious wars on the Danube, where Domitian never achieved an entirely satisfactory settlement and, worse still, lost two legions and many other troops. Difficulties with the Dacians which began the previous year in 86 continued three more years, from the midst of the current year A.D. 87 into A.D. 91. This was naturally held against Domitian at Rome, though admitted even by Tacitus to be due to the slackness or rashness of his commanders. It did not affect his popularity with the army, however, whose pay he had wisely raised by one-third in A.D. 84, from three hundred to four hundred sesterces.

The real issue was his own constitutional and ceremonial position. He continued his father’s policy of holding frequent consulates; he was consul ordinarius every year from 82 to 88; but in any of them he scarcely had more than the title; for he never continued in office as consul beyond the Kalends of May, one May, about four and a half months, and for the most part only in the beginning of the year, to the Ides of January, thirteen January, about two weeks. He had become censor for life two years before, in 85, with consequent control over senatorial membership and general behavior; he wore triumphal dress in the Senate; and he presided, wearing Greek dress and a golden crown, over four yearly games based on the Greek model of the Olympic Games, the Olympics, with his fellow judges wearing crowns bearing his own effigy among effigies of the gods.

He was not a little pleased too, at hearing the acclamations of the people in the Colosseum on a day of festival, “All happiness to our lord and lady.”

But when, during the celebration of the Capitoline trial of skill, the whole concourse of people entreated him with one voice to restore Palfurius Sura to his place in the Senate, from which he had long been expelled, having then carried away the prize of eloquence from all the orators who had contended for it, Domitian did not condescend to give them any answer, but only commanded silence to be proclaimed by the voice of the crier.

With equal arrogance, when he dictated the form of a letter to be used by his procurators, he began it thus: “Our lord and god commands this and this”; and showing all the signs of someone drunk with power, he preferred to be addressed as “dominus et deus”, “master and god”. From this it became a rule that no one should style him otherwise either in writing or speaking. The emperor saw himself as an absolute ruler and took pride in being called master and god:dominus et deus.” According to Suetonius, a grave source of offense was his insistence on being addressed as dominus et deus, “master and god”. He was the first of the emperors to deify himself during his lifetime by assuming the title of “Lord and God”. The temple begun by Titus in A.D. 80 to house the imperial cult of his father Vespasian, and completed by Domitian sometime during the fifteen years of his reign, was known near the end of his reign as the temple of Vespasian and Domitian. Roman temples dedicated to the imperial cult of each of the emperors were built after their deaths, when they were declared deified. Thus, Domitian now had a temple of worship to his father and to himself as a god while he lived.

In A.D. 88, twenty years after Nero’s death, during the reign of Domitian, there was a third Nero pretender. He was supported by the Parthians, who only reluctantly gave him up, and the matter almost came to war. And for hundreds of years after Nero’s death the Nero Redivivus Legend of Nero’s survival and return still persisted.

In the Body of Christ, the Christian Assembly, Anacletus died, A.D. 88 or 91. He had been Episcopos of Rome from A.D. 76 to 88 or perhaps to A.D. 91, and Clement of Rome was elected his successor, the third after St. Peter, from A.D. 88 or perhaps 91 to his death in 97.

Domitian soon returned to the Danube, where the Roman army won another decisive victory; Roman forces, under the newly appointed governor of Upper Moesia, Tettius Julianus, defeated the Dacians at Tapae in the Second Dacian War, most likely in A.D. 88. The time Domitian spent with the soldiers on the Danube only further increased his popularity with the army.

But matters remained far from settled. The crisis came on one January, A.D. 89, with the revolt of Lucius Antonius Saturninus, governor of Germania Superior, Upper Germany, who mutinied at Mainz. Saturninus was proclaimed emperor by two legions in Upper Germany. Much of Saturninus’s cause for rebellion was the increasing oppression of homosexuals by the emperor. Saturninus being a homosexual himself, he rebelled against the oppressor. But Lappius Maximus, the commander of Germania Inferior, Lower Germany, remained loyal. The rebellion was suppressed by the Lower German army. At the following Battle of Castellum, Saturninus was killed and this brief rebellion was at an end. Thus, Domitian quelled the civil war, begun by Lucius Antonius, governor of Upper Germany, without being obliged to be personally present at it, and with remarkable good fortune. For, at the very moment of joining battle, the Rhine suddenly thawing, the troops of the barbarians ready to join Antonius were prevented from crossing the river. Before the messengers who brought the news of it arrived, he had notice of this victory by some portents, presages, omens, intuitions and signs. For on the very day the battle was fought, a splendid eagle spread its wings round his statue at Rome, making most joyful cries. And shortly after, a rumor became common that Antonius was slain; no, many positively affirmed that they saw his head brought to the city. The revolt was promptly suppressed, and the mutiny by Lucius Antonius Saturninus, governor of Upper Germany, in A.D. 89 was stamped out. Lappius Maximus purposely destroyed Saturninus’s files in the expectation of preventing a massacre of his supporters. But Domitian wanted vengeance, and the rebel leaders were punished. On the emperor’s arrival Saturninus’s officers were brutally and mercilessly executed.

But later a number of executions followed, and the law of majestas, treason against majesty, was employed freely against senators. Domitian suspected, most likely with good reason, that Saturninus had hardly acted on his own. Powerful allies in the Senate of Rome more than likely had been his secret supporters. And so in Rome now the vicious treason trials returned, seeking to purge the Senate of conspirators.

However, later that same year, A.D. 89, after this interlude on the Rhine, Domitian’s attention was soon drawn back to the Danube. The Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi and the Sarmatian Jazyges were causing trouble.

After Cornelius Fuscus was killed at Tapae in A.D. 86 trying to avenge the A.D. 85 death of Oppius Sabinus and the Fifth Legion Alaudae was completely destroyed, in A.D. 89 Domitian sent his second expedition against the Dacians; the first one was in 85, after the killing of Oppius Sabinus by the Dacian invaders; and now, four years later, in 89, the second expedition, on the death of Cornelius Fuscus, prefect of the Pretorian cohorts, to whom he had entrusted the conduct of that war. But Domitian was forced reluctantly to conclude a truce with King Decebalus, offering Decebalus a settlement to avoid conflicts on two fronts while Domitian attacked the Marcomanni and Quadi. A treaty was agreed with the Dacians who were more than happy to accept peace. Difficulties with the Dacians were settled by making King Decebalus a client ruler. Then Domitian moved against the troublesome barbarians. In this First Pannonian War, Domitian attacked the Suebian Marcomanni and Quadi and defeated them. He also finally defeated the Chatti in Gaul. Domitian had earlier claimed a triumph in A.D. 83 for subduing the Catti in Gaul, but that conquest was illusory, and the whole campaign against them had been ridiculed as unnecessary. Final victory over them did not really come before now, with their defeat in A.D. 89.

After such victorious campaigns against the Germans, Domitian would often wear the costume of a victorious general in public, and also at times when he visited the Senate.

After several battles with the Chatti and Daci, he celebrated a double triumph. Afterward, he awarded himself the title of Germanicus, a cognomen, for his “success.” He even renamed two of the months after himself. After his two triumphs, when he assumed the cognomen of Germanicus, he called the months of September and October, Germanicus and Domitian, after his own names, because he commenced his reign in the one, and was born in the other: September becomes Germanicus, and October Domitianus.

He conferred some of the greatest offices on his freedmen and soldiers. He forbade two legions to be quartered in the same camp, and amounts of more than a thousand sesterces to be deposited by any soldier with the standards, because it was rumored that Lucius Antonius had been encouraged in his late project by the large sum deposited in the military chest by the two legions which he had in the same winter-quarters. He then made an addition to the soldiers’ pay, of three gold pieces a year, an increase from four gold pieces, to seven.

Domitian’s autocratic tendencies meant that the real seat of power during his reign resided with his court. The features typically associated with later courts, a small band of favored courtiers, a keen interest in the bizarre and the unusual, wrestlers, jesters, and dwarves, and a highly mannered, if somewhat artificial atmosphere, characterized Domitian’s palace too, whether at Rome or at his Alban villa, some twelve and a half miles outside of the capital. Courtiers included family members and freedmen, as well as Friends, amici—a group of politicians, generals, and Praetorian prefects who offered input on important matters. Reliance on amici was not new, yet the arrangement underscored Domitian’s mistrust of the aristocracy, most notably the Senate, whose role in government suffered as Domitian deliberately concentrated power in the hands of few senators while expanding the duties of the equestrian class. Domitian’s mistake was that he made no attempt to mask his feelings about the Senate. Inclined neither by nature nor by conviction to include the body in his emperorship, he treated this body no differently than any other. Senatorial grievances were not without basis: at least eleven senators of consular rank were executed and many others exiled, offering ample attestation of the emperor’s contempt for the body and its membership.

In A.D. 90, after censuring the Vestal Virgins for, among other indiscretions, incest, one was even buried alive; her lover was also executed. Cornelia, the president of the Vestals, who had formerly been acquitted upon a charge of incontinence, being a long time afterward again prosecuted and now condemned, he ordered to be buried alive; the head of the Vestal Virgins was walled up alive in an underground cell, after being convicted of the charge of immoral behavior, while her alleged lovers were beaten to death; her gallants were condemned to be whipped to death with rods in the Comitium, excepting only a man of Praetorian rank, to whom he granted the favor of banishment, because he confessed the fact while the case was doubtful and it was not yet proved against him, though the witnesses had been put to the torture.

Suetonius claimed in De Vitae Caesarium, The Lives of the Caesars, The Twelve Caesars, that Domitian was not evil to begin with; however, he believed that greed and fear of assassination made him extremely cruel. Historian Cassius Dio in his Roman History says the emperor was both bold and quick to anger. He was extremely vain and very self-conscious of being bald. By all accounts Domitian appears to have been a thoroughly nasty, ill-natured, disagreeable, mean and spiteful person, rarely polite, insolent, arrogant and cruel. By the end of his reign he was disfigured by baldness, corpulence, and the slenderness of his legs, which had lost much muscle tone from a long illness, like a pear standing on two sticks. He was treacherous as well as secretive, feeling no affection for anyone, except a few women. His paranoia had even extended to his wife, Domitia Longina. He had accused her of adultery, early in his reign, and planned to put her to death, a common practice for the time. Some accounts claimed she deserved it. Domitia had been married to a senator, Aelius Lamia, but he was convinced by her to divorce her so she could marry Domitian. Domitian had afterward temporarily left his wife to live with his niece Julia, Titus’s daughter by his second marriage, before he was finally convinced by others to return to his wife.

In Judea Domitian stepped up the policy introduced by his father to track down and execute Jews claiming descent from their ancient king, David. But if this policy under Vespasian had been introduced to eliminate any potential leaders of rebellions, with Domitian it was pure religious oppression. Even among leading Romans in Rome itself this religious tyranny found victims. Domitian’s ever greater religious zealotry was a sign of the emperor’s increasing tyranny. The Senate by then was treated with open contempt by him. In all likelihood, much of this was due to the malign influence of the genius of the emperor working on him, as it had worked on those before him. Whatever pagans sacrifice to the genius of the emperor they offer to a demon and not to God. A tree is known by its fruit.

At this time Christians used the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint, which was written and read by Jews, as the Greek language generally replaced Hebrew and Aramaic as the language of the people. In response to the rise of the Christian sect and the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, Jewish rabbis at the school of Jamnia in A.D. 90 now discussed rejecting the Septuagint in favor of selected Hebrew language scriptural texts, omitting certain books such as Baruch, Judith, the four Books of Maccabees, Sirach, and Tobit, some of these originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic or both, books which were relatively recent Jewish contributions of the third through the first centuries before Christ, which had become part of Jewish culture; and they simultaneously excluded as condemned and false the writings of those they call “heretics”, the minim, including Christians, also called nosrim, nozrim, “Nazarenes”, and cursed Christians in a synagogue service “benediction” against them and others. Palestinian texts of the Eighteen Benedictions from the Cairo Genizah present a text of the benediction which identifies the minim:

“For the apostates may there be no future expectation unless they return to Your Torah. As for the nosrim and the minim, may they perish immediately. Speedily may they be erased from the Book of Life, and may they not be registered among the righteous. Blessed are You, O Lord, Who subdues the wicked.”

The response was a hearty “Amen”. While other specimens of the Palestinian liturgy show slight variation, the nosrim, usually translated as “Christians”, and minim are included in the best texts of this benediction. The fact remains that the nosrim were included with apostates and heretics and the wicked in the Genizah documents. Christians participating in synagogue services were unable to recite this benediction with the rest of the Jewish assembly lest they curse themselves.

Domitian, already considered by many in the government to be a difficult man and a poor ruler with questionable morals, also now in his reign enacted the first heavy persecution of Christians since Nero. Indeed, Domitian, having exercised his cruelty against many, and unjustly slain no small number of noble and illustrious men at Rome, and having, without cause, punished vast numbers of honorable men with exile and the confiscation of their property, at length established himself as the successor of Nero, in his hatred and hostility to God. He was the second that raised a persecution against us, although his father Vespasian had attempted nothing to our prejudice, as having no such evil plans. Hegesippus reports that after the conquest of Jerusalem, Vespasian ordered a search be made for all descendants of David so that no member of the royal house should be left among the Jews, which resulted in another great persecution of the Jews, and of Christians who were assumed to be a sect of the Jews. This policy under Vespasian had been introduced to eliminate any potential leaders of rebellions, but with Domitian it was pure religious oppression. As his reign progressed and the pressures of ruling mounted, Domitian’s paranoia seized and dominated him. In order to pay for his extravagances he tightened the Jewish tax enacted by his father and seized the fortunes of senators and wealthy Romans. When the Acts of Nero’s reign were reversed after his death, an exception was made regarding the persecution of the Christians, and they continued to be persecuted. The Jewish revolt brought on them fresh unpopularity, and the subsequent destruction of the Holy City deprived them of the last shreds of protection afforded them by being confused with the Jews. Hence Domitian in his attack on the aristocratic party found little difficulty in condemning those who were Christians. To observe Jewish practices was no longer lawful; to reject the national religion, without being able to plead the excuse of being a Jew, was atheism, because the Jews do not worship or offer any sacrifice to any of the gods and goddesses of Rome. This was regarded by Romans and the government as treason and blasphemy, and a destabilizing threat to the established order of nature and the Empire and the Senate and the people of Rome. On one count or the other, as Jews or as atheists, the Christians were liable to punishment. Among the more famous Christian martyrs in this Second Persecution were Domitian’s cousin, Flavius Clemens, the consul, and Marcus Acilius Glabrio who had also been consul. Flavia Domitilla, the wife of Flavius Clemens, was banished to Pandateria. Pontia and Pandateria, now called Ponza and Ventotene, in Imperial Rome were places of exile, where emperors sent family members who annoyed them, or political enemies. But the persecution was not confined to such noble victims. We read of many others who suffered death or the loss of their goods.

Anacletus had been Episcopos of Rome from A.D. 76 to 88 or perhaps to A.D. 91, and Clement of Rome was elected his successor, the third after St. Peter, from A.D. 88 or perhaps 91, to his death in 97.

Some scholars, dismissing many reliable contemporary historical sources attesting the Domitian persecutions, claim that it is less easy from these sources to gauge Domitian’s attitude toward Christians and Jews specifically, asserting that reliable evidence for their persecution is difficult to find; that some Christians may have been among those banished or executed from time to time during the A.D. nineties, but that the documented testimony which these scholars are willing to accept as verifiable falls short of confirming any organized program of persecution under Domitian’s reign. They acknowledge that there is clear evidence that Jews were made to feel uneasy under Domitian, who scrupulously collected the Jewish tax and harassed Jewish tax dodgers during much of his rule, taxes which had been imposed by emperors since Vespasian for allowing them to practice their own faith, the fiscus iudaicus. And besides the exactions from others, this poll-tax on the Jews was in fact now levied with extreme rigor, both on those who lived according to the manner of Jews in the city, without publicly professing themselves to be such, and on those who, by concealing their origin, avoided paying the tribute imposed on that people. Many Christians were also tracked down and forced to pay the tax, based on the widespread Roman belief that they were Jews pretending to be something else. But Domitian was especially rigorous in exacting taxes from the Jews. Suetonius remembers, when he was a youth, that he was present when an old man, ninety years of age, had his person exposed to view in a very crowded court, in order that the procurator might, on inspection, satisfy himself whether he was circumcised and therefore whether he was required to pay the fiscus Judaicus. Some scholars claim that, as with Christians, such policies did not amount to persecution. In their view, this policy does help to explain the Jewish fears of expulsion present in the contemporary sources, but in their view it does not amount to persecution. Scholars who dismiss contemporary Roman and Christian sources offering evidence of persecution, claim that, “on balance, the tradition of Domitian as persecutor has been greatly overstated, yet given his autocratic tendencies and devotion to Roman pagan religion, it is easy to see how such stories could have evolved and multiplied.” So easily do they wave off eyewitness testimonies of rigorous persecution. This is a form of libel, itself a form of persecution. Such views represent Christians as unjust defamers of the Roman Emperor Domitian. His own Roman contemporaries do not themselves give Domitian such a tolerant judgment as these scholars—and they were eyewitnesses and historians from the beginning of his reign.

Meanwhile, the treason trials had already cost the lives of twelve former consuls. Ever more senators were falling victim to allegations of treason against the genius of the emperor. Members of Domitian’s own family were not safe from accusation by the emperor.

Death was staring us in the face.


See virtual 3D tour of Rome -
Rome Reborn 2.2: A Tour of Ancient Rome in 320 CE - on Vimeo - Bernard Frischer


This chapter is the fifteenth part of a sixteen-part summary of the intervening years between the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul under Nero and the writing of the New Testament works of the Epistle of Jude, the Book of Revelation and the Letters of John the Apostle. Sources are linked below.

Historians and Bible scholars disagree on the precise dates of the intervening years. But in general they do agree that the entire historical period extends from about A.D. 67 through 90.
The summary of the intervening years continues in the next two chapters Sixty-one through Sixty-two. The concluding chapters Sixty-one, Sixty-two, and Sixty-three of this Harmony of the Gospel contain the First Letter of Clement and the Letter of Jude, and the Book of Revelation, and the Letters of John.
Note to the reader:
The text of this chapter is a redaction of the informative sources listed and linked below, rearranged, chronologically sequenced, collated, condensed, combined and adapted, while seeking to preserve much of their expressive language, and in some instances updating and improving both their translations and the written copy. Parallel constructions and duplications in the text have been kept to a minimum as far as possible without loss of information.

Ecclesiastical History III, chapters 13–14, 17
The Twelve Caesars: Domitian 2–13, 18-22
Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXVII,2

See the following resources:

Eccesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, Book III, chapters 13, 14 and 17
Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org)

Chapter 13 Anencletus, the second Bishop of Rome
Chapter 14 Avilus, the second Bishop of Alexandria
Chapter 17 The Persecution of the Christians under Domitian

The Twelve Caesars: Titus Flavius Domitianus
Domitian: Roman Emperor (britannica.com)
Domitian (roman-emperors.org)
Domitian (ancient.eu)
Domitian (livius.org)
Domitian (en.wikipedia.org)
Domitian (newadvent.org)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXVII,2 (penelope.uchicago.edu)

See Conservapedia article Domitian

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Bible Encyclopedias: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature (studylight.org)
Catholic Encyclopedia Catholic Online (catholic.org)
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Table of Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, in English translation, Joel Kalvesmaki 2013 (kalvesmaki.com)

List of 300 Septuagint Old Testament quotations in the New Testament, by Steve Rudd 2017 (bible.ca)

Table of LXX quotes and allusions in the New Testament


Church History (Eusebius): The Ecclesiastical History Of Eusebius Pamphilus: Bishop Of Caesarea, In Palestine (newadvent.org)

The Works of Flavius Josephus William Whiston, Translator, 1737 (sacred-texts.com)

Suetonius: Twelve Caesars: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by C. Suetonius Tranquilus; To which are added His Lives of the Grammarians, Rhetoricians, and Poets. The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D., Revised and corrected by T. Forester, Esq., A.M. (Gutenberg.org)

Tacitus: The Annals, Written 109 A.C.E. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
Tacitus: The Histories, Written 109 A.C.E. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (A.D. 69 through 70)

Sextus Aurelius Victor: Epitome De Caesaribus (roman-emperors.org)

Eutropius: Breviarium - Eutropius's Abridgement of Roman History (tertullian.org)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome (penelope.uchicago.edu)

Early Christian Writings A.D. 30 through 380 (earlychristianwritings.com)
See Biblical Canon and Apocrypha.


"known as emperor of Rome and persecutor of the Church"

See Catholic Encyclopedia article: Domitian (newadvent.org)
See also note below (near the bottom of this marginal column)— "the tradition of Domitian as persecutor has been greatly overstated"

"he had the assurance to boast in the Senate that he himself had bestowed the empire on his father and brother, and they had restored it to him."

Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Domitian 13.
Make no mistake: Domitian is claiming that he himself is the genius of the emperor incarnate.
Again: The word "genius" comes from the Latin term for tutelary spirit: the genius loci were the spirits of place or location (singular genius locus).
In ancient mythology, a genius was a supernatural being appointed to guide a person throughout life; a guardian spirit; a demon (also spelled daemon). They are not the same as the guardian angels (Matthew 18:10), for according to St. Paul the genius of the emperor and all of the gods of Rome were "devils" or "demons", 1 Corinthians 10:20 and commentaries.
In Moslem mythology a genius was a jinni or genie, (plural jinn), a spirit-being with intellect and will, either good or bad; and, according to the Qur'an, evil desert jinn were converted by hearing the preaching of the prophet Muhammad and converted other jinn.
Surah al-Jinn Chapter 72, verses 1 and 2 (al-islam.org)
In the tale of Al'a-ed'Din and the Wonderful Lamp from the anthology of grossly immoral tales told by Shah'rezad in The Thousand and One Nights,
(so immoral that uncensored, unedited translations of the work have been and still are banned in several countries throughout the civilized world as a destructively harmful influence on the morals of youth)
the jinni of the ring and the jinni of the lamp are good jinn.
Today astonishingly brilliant and talented men and women and youth of more than extraordinary human abilities, skills and intelligence are said to be "geniuses", a use of the term which has its ancient roots in the belief that such persons have been endowed with superhuman gifts originating in a superior realm above the human:
geniuses in the fields of athletics, philosophy, education, science, business, drama, poetry, calligraphy, the arts, engineering, mining, metallurgy, stone working, architecture, interior and clothing design, politics, government, administration, leadership, command authority, war, military strategy, diplomacy, rhetoric, arbitration, peace, agriculture, animal husbandry, culinary arts, medicine, and religion.
Compare Exodus 31:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:4-28; James 1:16-17; 3:13-17.
The Roman cult of reverence for the living emperor was directed more toward acknowledgement of the power of the ruling spirit of the office of emperor, the genius of the emperor residing in the man chosen by the gods or by God as ruler of the empire, a kind of superhuman, divine power or living spirit of authority that was assumed to possess him from the moment that he was acclaimed Imperator (compare Romans 13:1 and 1 Peter 2:13). The genius of the emperor was essentially a pagan god, the animating and ruling spirit of the Roman empire, influencing, even possessing the Roman emperors. In the first century, sacrifice offered to the genius of the emperor was sacrifice offered to a demon.
Here, the boasting of Domitian that he himself had bestowed the empire on his father and his brother, and that they had returned it to him, is an implicit claim to be himself the genius of the emperor in person, a god incarnate.
See Avatar.
In the Indian Bhagavad-Gita Prince Krishna claims that he is the god Vishnu, and he imposes a vision on Prince Arjun'a to convince him.
Compare Luke 4:6-7 "And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine."
It is not impossible that the most infamous dictators in history had, in some manner, made such a deal with the devil for power and empire.
—such as Ramesses II the Great, Sennacherib, Manasseh king of Judah, the Chinese Emperor Xin Xi Huang Te, Herod the Great, Caligula, Domitian, Diocletian, Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, Maximilien Robespierre, Rasputin, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and Osama Bin Laden.
Their reigns were evidence of this, being marked by violence, bloodshed, oppression of the poor, excessive taxation, extortion, seizures of property, secret police, arbitrary imprisonments and executions, terror, dominated by an elite class of self-indulgent, wealthy, immoral, depraved individuals appointed to positions of power, whose followers were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, slanderers, backbiters, haters of God, spiteful, arrogant, inventors of new kinds of evil, lacking understanding, without natural affections, implacable, inhuman, merciless and unforgiving—what we would call "hell on earth".
Were the Pagan Gods Actually Demons? The Scriptural View and Why It Matters, Msgr. Charles Pope (blog.adw.org)
Compare Daniel 10:12–11:1 and commentaries on 10:13 and 10:20.
See again Geaux Therefore - "Swear by the Genius of our Lord the Emperor": False Worship and Persecution of Christians, Rex Butler, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (nobts.edu) scroll down to see text Geaux Therefore
The Return of the (Pagan) Gods, Bevil Bramwill, OMI (thecatholicthing.org)
See especially Socialism and State.

"to house the imperial cult of his father..."

See Roman religion Gallery: Imperial cult (bbc.co.uk)
See also Wisdom 14:12-21.

"In front of one of Rome's Jewish quarters an arch was erected to honor Titus. Another arch was built on the Forum Romanum, where it can still be seen." See:

"Yet he never took the trouble of reading history or poetry..."

This is not a contradiction.
The preceding chapter Fifty-three states "Domitian, therefore, dedicated himself to poetry and the arts instead"; a studying of history is not mentioned, and there is no indication that he took the trouble to read any history. At that time he dedicated himself to poetry and the arts; however, he later neglected the art of poetry (see Suetonius, Domitian 2). Apparently, during the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, Domitian did not dedicate himself to the works of others, but only to his own poetry and artistic expressions, as did the emperor Nero.

"and an odeum for rhetoric"

A speakers' hall.
See Definition of odeum - Merriam-Webster Dictionary (merriam-webster.com)

"as handsome as Metius fancies himself"

Either Metius Pomposianus, the man whose horoscope showed that he was destined to be emperor, or Metius Rufus whom Domitian made governor of Egypt. (Spellings according to Suetonius and Dio, English trans.)
Marcus Mettius Pomposianus was the senator elevated to the consulate by the emperor Vespasian, notwithstanding his claim of royal blood. Domitian, less tolerant of potential rivals, banished him, and subsequently had him put to death.
  • Suetonius, "The Life of Vespasian", 14, "The Life of Domitian", 10, 20.
  • Cassius Dio, LXVII, 12.
  • Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus, 9.
  • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 1072 ("Mettius Pomposianus").
Marcus Mettius Rufus was governor of Roman Egypt A.D. 89-92 during the reign of Domitian.
Marcus Junius Rufus was appointed governor of Roman Egypt by Domitian two years before his death (c. 94-96).

"Vibius Crispus, answered 'Not even a fly.'"

Suetonius, Domitian 3:1
Vibius Crispus, one of Domitian's Friends, is mentioned by Dio Cassius as one of the "foremost men" entertained frequently at the table of former Emperor Vitellius in Rome.
Cassius Dio: Epitome of Book LXIV, 2.3.
They engaged in competitions of gluttony so gross that when Cripus fell ill and was absent for a time, he returned and quipped that if he had not been sick he would have died (of overeating).
Tacitus: The Histories: Book II paragraph 10
Vibius Crispus's rank among men of distinction was solely due to his wealth, power, and shrewd ability, and not as a man of worth. He was a member of the prosecution of men who had been paid informers in the days of Nero, and when he demanded a certain party be charged and condemned, men remembered that Cripus himself had profited from the same profession; hence they disliked him more than the harsh penalty he demanded the Senate should inflict on the guilty.
Tacitus: The Histories: Book IV paragraphs 42-43
Africanus, among others infamous for their practice as informers, who did not dare confess his own guilt, and could not deny it, when Vibius Crispus pressed him with questions as a prosecutor during his examination, and was complicating the charge which he could not refute, turned on Crispus, shifting the blame from himself by associating another with his own guilt.
When Regulus was selflessly defended by his brother, the defense of him who destroyed others, ruining innocent boys, old men with illustrious names, noble ladies, while placing the entire blame on Nero and the other informers and declaring the whole Senate might be destroyed by one word, provoked a senator to sarcastically urge the body to preserve such ready men, that every generation might have its teacher, and that the young might imitate Regulus, just as the old imitate Marcellus and Vibius Crispus. For even failed villainy has imitators: but what happens if it flourishes and becomes strong?
See additional referent sources listed in the Wikipedia article: Lucius Junius Quintus Vibius Crispus (en.wikipedia.org)

"he seldom ate more at the evening meal than a Matian apple"

The earliest mention of Matian apples is in the oldest apple recipe on record, for Diced Pork and Matian Apples, from the treatise De Re Coquinaria (“On Cookery”), dating from the third century (the 200's), a recipe attributed to a gourmand named Caelius Apicius, who lived two centuries before its publication, that is, very early first century, or before, about the time of the birth of Christ. See Apicius - Wikipedia; also History and Folklore - US Apple Association (usapple.org).
Apples are mentioned in the Douay-Rheims and King James Bibles (but not in Genesis 3 —the Forbidden fruit was not an apple ! ):
Deuteronomy 32:10;
Psalm 16:8 / 17:8;
Proverbs 7:2;
Canticle of Canticles / Song of Solomon
—2:3-5; 5:1 (Douay-Rheims); 7:8; 8:5;
Lamentations 2:18;
Joel 1:12;
Zechariah 2:8.
The "apple of the eye" is (a) the pupil of the eye (b) something precious.

"and whom, the year following, he honored with the title of Augusta, a title of divinity""

The feminine form of "Augustus".
(Again:) The meaning of Augustus carried with it ideas of superhuman status, from the Latin ‘augere‘ meaning ‘to increase’, connected also with ‘augurium‘ and the religious connotations of augury, and elevated the "august one" beyond mortal limits.
Compare (again) Tertullian - Apology: Chapter XXXIV. Augustus, the founder of the empire, would not even have the title Lord… (biblehub.com)

"he had recalled her to his pulvinar."

Latin term
Robert Graves renders the phrase as "a recall to my divine bed" (Domitian 13)—The Twelve Caesars, Penguin Classics

"Domitian displayed that terrifying pedantic adherence to the very letter of the law..."

See Pedant (dictionary.com);
also Pedantic (literarydevices.net),
and Pedantry (freethesaurus.com).
See article Why do pedants pedant? David Steele (theguardian.com)
Compare the dictionary definition of prig (dictionary.com)
and encyclopedic article Prig (en.wikipedia.org).

"vices from which he himself was not immune."

This the logical fallacy of special pleading, because he was emperor, and he was the censor, and he was therefore not subject to laws meant for the common people and the Senate. "I'm your father. Do as I say, don't do as I do." See Matthew 23:2-3; 1 Peter 2:13-17; Romans 13:1-10; Exodus 20:12; James 3:1.
An analogy in the world of sports can be seen in the fact that head coaches of sports teams like football do not play in the games or show by their personal example that they are the best player, but they in their role as coach and teacher critique and guide the players so as to improve their performances and win games. As long as their teams win, no one calls the coach a hypocrite, who determines the play on the field from the sidelines.

"contrary to the Clodian law"

Leges Clodiae ("Clodian Laws") were a series of laws (plebiscites) passed by the Plebeian Council of the Roman Republic under the tribune Publius Clodius Pulcher in 58 B.C.
See Notes and Discussion: The Lex Clodia de censoria notione W. Jeffrey Tatum (journals.uchicago.edu)

"he completed the conquest of the Agri Decumates"

See map of Agri Decumates (upload.wikipedia.org) and Agri Decumates, ancient region, Germany (britannica.com/place)

"in the reentrant angle of the Rhine"

See Roman colonization of the Main valley and Odenwald (raybishophistory.co.uk). The reentrant angle was a geo-politically defined wedge-shaped tract of land that lay between the Rhine where it flowed north through Germania superior, and the upper reaches of the Danube that flowed east and bounded Rhestia/Raetia, the territory of the Romansch or Raetians. It was the western end of the continental Rhine-Danube frontier.
See the following:

"he embarked on a victorious campaign to Germania"

The Roman province of Germany.
See Germania: Germania Inferior - Germania Superior (unrv.com)

"to engage the Catti in A.D. 83. This campaign against the Chatti was unprovoked"

Catti and Chatti: (both phonetically, kǎt-tē - Chatti, hard "ch" as in "christening" and "character"). Two variant spellings of the name of this people appear in the sources. Both forms are used here in the text, alternately and interchangeably.

"He also claimed a triumph in A.D. 83 for subduing the Catti in Gaul"

The Roman province of Gaul (Gallia)
See Gallia (unrv.com)

"The greatest threat, however, remained on the Danube, from the Dacians under Decebalus."

See Domitian's Dacian War (military.wikia.com)
See also Trajan's Dacian Wars (en.wikipedia.org)

"the holy Evangelist and Apostle Saint Luke, after the repose of the body of his teacher Saint Paul, spread the Gospel of Christ"

"In the city of Alexandria, he ordained a certain Abilius, called Avilius, as Episcopos to succeed Annas, who had been ordained by the Evangelist Mark"

According to the tradition related here, Abilius was ordained by Luke in 84, but Annas / Annianus whom he succeeded died in 85 (see below in the text). This is not a discrepancy, if Annianus had of necessity had to retire from the active episcopacy for reasons of health, or Avilius was consecrated Episcopos to assist him in anticipation of his impending death because of old age. Annianus had served as Episcopos for twenty-two years when he died in 85 the year after the consecration of Avilius and the subsequent martyrdom of St. Luke in 84.

"Cnaeus Julius Agricola"

Also spelled Gnaeus.

"the Dacians under their king Decebalus had crossed the Danube onto the northern frontier in raids in which they even killed the governor of Moesia"

A Roman province; the Greeks called it "Mysia".
See Moesia, ancient province, Europe (britannica.com)also called "European Mysia".
See also Mysia (perseus.tufts.edu). The Greeks called Moesia "Mysia" (Μυσία) and the inhabitants Mysians (Μυσοί), and sometimes European Mysia (Μυσία ή έν Εύρώπη), to distinguish it from Mysia in Asia [Minor] (the Mysia referenced in the Bible: Acts 16:7-8 κατα τήν Μυσίαν, "over against Mysia": see commentary on Acts 16:7).
(Map: Mysia (bibleatlas.org)—not the European Mysia raided by the Dacians under Decebalus.)

"To Cornelius Fuscus, prefect of the pretorian cohorts, he entrusted the conduct of that war."

"In spite of his private vices, and his own personal lack of moral values, he now set himself up as a reformer of morals and religion."

Autocracy
See Special pleading, Hypocrites and Christian In Name Only.
Compare Romans 13:1-7; Matthew 23:1-4; 1 Peter 2:13-17; Hebrews 13:7 and 13:17.
Compare the folk-saying: "Don't do as I do, do as I say" —(I'm your mother / father / pastor / doctor / teacher / dean / employer / instructor / higher-ranking officer / police-chief / warden / administrator / mayor / CEO / governor / president / dictator / crime lord / chief terrorist / group leader / bully ("your worst nightmare") / captor / — "I'm smarter than you").

"he set a mark of infamy on the records of judges … and inflicted on their authors a mark of infamy on their personal records"

The meaning of this mark of infamy mentioned by Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars, Domitian 8, is unclear. The phrase "on the public records" has been added here. Suetonius himself only says that a mark of infamy was placed on those judges and authors of libel suits. Robert Graves in his translation reads "penalized" and "came down heavy on authors who lampooned". In this Harmony of the Gospel "a mark of infamy" has been interpretively read as a mark on the public records of those on whom it was inflicted, rather than as a visible, physical branding seared onto a part of the body as a mark of disgrace. Alternatively it may have been a marking or badge to be worn on the clothing, the head, or arm. The custom of staining with a cord dipped in paint or dye the togas of senators in disgrace is also known.

"The lewdness of the Vestal Virgins, which had been overlooked by his father and brother, he punished severely"

The Vestal Virgins were the only female priestesses in Roman religion.
See Vestal Virgin (newworldencyclopedia.org)
See also Virginity and Chastity; Vow, Celibacy, Monk, Nun, Priest.

"Domitian's administration is judged by some historians to have been sound and efficient"

For example:
Domitian (roman-emperors.org) "...he also left the treasury with a surplus, perhaps the best proof of a financially sound administration...As many of his economic, provincial, and military policies reveal, he was efficient and practical in much that he undertook." John Donahue, College of William and Mary.
Domitian (ancient.eu) "Domitian proved to be an able administrator and did not ignore the welfare of the people...viewed as being generous, possessing self-restraint, considerate of all his friends, and conscientious when dispensing justice." Donald L. Wassen.
It would be unjust to omit that these historians also fully acknowledge Domitian's abusive tyranny, his oppressive paranoia, his delusions of godhood, his persecutions and his murders, in varying degrees, while they praise his administrative skill in the face of immoral public opposition and entrenched political corruption.

"Scantinian law"

Lex Scantinia
A Roman law that was created to penalize any male citizen of high status for taking a willing role in passive sexual behavior, as a prostitute or sodomite. See the following:

"the public now tended to see punishments of the Vestals for immoral acts of incest as mere acts of cruelty"

Compare multiple commentaries on
Romans 1:32 in the context of 1:29-32
also James 1:14.
See
Wisdom 1:12
2 Maccabees 4:17 and 6:13-16
Romans 13:3-4.

"rooted in the pervasive licentiousness which had so long prevailed"

The Catholic Church claims that no one can be saved by good works.
Compare
Matthew 7:15-27
Romans chapter 6
1 John 3:4-18
James 1:16–2:26
John 15:1-10
See also
commentaries on Ezekiel 18:24
commentaries on Matthew 7:21
commentaries on Matthew 12:33
commentaries on Matthew 25:29
commentaries on Revelation 22:12
See Corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

"and his vast villa on Alban Mount"

Also known as Monte Cavo.
See article Monte Cavo (en.wikipedia)

"According to Eusebius, in the fourth year of Domitian, A.D. 85, Annianus, who was the first Episcopos of Alexandria, died"

Eccesiastical History, Book III, Chapter 14
Avilus, the second Bishop of Alexandria

"it took no revenge on those who had seized it, and it could not save itself when it was lost."

See the ridicule of idolatry in
The Letter of Jeremiah: Baruch 6
See also
Isaiah 45:20-25,
Hosea 4:12 multiple versions,
—and Psalm 115:3-8
Compare 1 Samuel 4:1–7:2 and 2 Samuel 6:1-14.
Some Christian denominations warn that saluting the Flag of the United States of America and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is an act of idolatry—the formal term is vexillolatry, "worship of the flag".
So is honor and reverence for the Christian Cross. See "Vexilla Regis - Royal Banners".
Monuments, statues and memorials erected to the war dead and victims of violence are also condemned by them as pagan idols having Babylonian, Greek and Roman origins in pagan religious worship practices that no true Christian should ever honor with flowers, tokens of respect, speeches and visits, or attendance, or even acknowledge, and warn that those who do so will surely be condemned to hell by a righteous God for their vile idolatry and hypocrisy in violation of the First and Second Commandments (Last Judgment).
See the following articles:
See also these articles on human duty:

"at which he presided wearing his imperial buskins"

Buskins are high shoes or half boots reaching to the knee, and strapped or laced to the ankle, also worn by Greek and Roman actors in tragedies; also called cothurnus.

"Domitian liked the Games, in particular, chariot races, even adding two new teams of drivers to them, Golden and Purple."

Roman Games, Chariot Races & Spectacle (ancient.eu)
The Games provided escapism, and a form of cultural affirmation and release, according to the Greek theory of emotional catharsis through theatre. See the following:
Christians avoided the Games because of their violence, cruelty, bloodshed, and their dedication to the honor of the Roman gods. See
Habakkuk 1:13 especially 1 Peter 4:3-5 and James 1:14-15
See article Violent Acts Teach Violence, by Marco Antonio Regil - Huffpost (huffingtonpost.com)
"Keep the animals entertained and they will be too distracted to revolt"—anonymous, 20th century. Probably drawn from George Orwell's Animal Farm based on a famous line from Juvenal's Satires, "Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt."

"To the four former teams in the Circensian games, he added two new ones"

The Circensian games were the games of contest, racing and combat in the Roman Circus. The Circus Maximus was the great Circus Arena in Rome.
Circus Maximus - Ancient History Encyclopedia (ancient.eu)

"flamen of Jupiter"

priests of Jupiter.
The word "flamen" (Latin, plural "flamens or flamines"), in ancient Rome, denotes a priest serving one particular deity.
See Flamen (britannica.com)

"Sportula"

a gift; a present; a prize; hence, an alms; a largess.
The Roman sportula was usually a small basket containing food. It was part of the meaning of "bread and circuses" provided to the people by the emperors and rulers of the Roman Empire. See the following:

"the fasces"

from Latin fascis "bundle".
In ancient Rome, a bundle of rods enclosing an ax, with the blade projecting, carried by lictors before magistrates as a symbol of power; lictors being officers of the court.

"It might be fairer to criticize him for an entirely different matter: undue paternalism."

See Paternalism - The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (plato.stanford.edu)

"he even lined the walls of the porticos in which he used to walk, and the gallery where he took his daily walks, with the stone called Phengites, moonstone, highly-polished"

"Like the rest of mankind, he, through fear of death, was subject to lifelong bondage to him who has the power of death, that is, the devil."

Adapted from Hebrews 2:14-15. See commentaries on Hebrews 2:15.

"He was the first of the emperors to deify himself during his lifetime by assuming the title of 'Lord and God'"

He was not the first to declare himself a living god—he was the first to assume this title.
See again Geaux Therefore - "Swear by the Genius of our Lord the Emperor": False Worship and Persecution of Christians, Rex Butler, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (nobts.edu) scroll down to see text Geaux Therefore
Because of the Roman belief that emperors became immortal gods after death, Domitian may have thought that by declaring himself a god during life by his own authority as emperor, through the power of the genius of the emperor, he would not have to die to be a god, and thus by imperial decree he would simply bypass death, thereby making himself immortal.

"another Nero imposter appeared"

After Nero's suicide in 68, there was a widespread belief, especially in the eastern provinces, that he was not dead and somehow would return. This belief came to be known as the Nero Redivivus Legend.
At least three Nero imposters emerged leading rebellions. Twenty years after Nero's death, during the reign of Domitian, there was a third Nero pretender. He was supported by the Parthians, who only reluctantly gave him up and the matter almost came to war(Suetonius, The Lives of Twelve Caears, Life of Nero 57).
The legend of Nero's return lasted for hundreds of years after Nero's death. Augustine of Hippo wrote of the legend as a popular belief in 422 (repeated here for the reader's convenience)
"Others, again, suppose that he is not even dead, but that he was concealed that he might be supposed to have been killed, and that he now lives in concealment in the vigor of that same age which he had reached when he was believed to have perished, and will live until he is revealed in his own time and restored to his kingdom. But I wonder that men can be so audacious in their conjectures."
—(Augustine of Hippo, City of God XX.19.3).

"First Dacian War...Second Dacian War"

The sources vary in designating the name and number of the Dacian wars, those under Domitian, the first and the second, and those under Trajan, the first and the second.
See (again) Domitian's Dacian War (military.wikia.com)
See also (again) Trajan's Dacian Wars (en.wikipedia.org)

"In the First Pannonian War, Domitian attacked the Suebian Marcomanni and Quadi and defeated them."

See Rebellion and Pannonia (unrv.com)
See also Map of the Roman Empire - Pannonia (J-2 on the map) (bible-history.com)

"Courtiers included family members and freedmen, as well as Friends, amici"

Latin, plural amici (singular amicus).
The word "amici" denotes a group of trusted politicians, generals, and praetorian prefects who offered input on important matters. Compare John 19:12.
See also
2 Samuel 15:32-37; 16:15-19
1 Kings 4:5
Daniel 14:1-2
1 Maccabees 10:18-20
John 15:14-15
James 2:23

"some of these were originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic or both"

"some of these originally written in Hebrew and/or Aramaic". Discoveries of Hebrew and Aramaic manucripts of Tobit, ben Sira (Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus), Epistle of Jeremiah in the caves at Qumran near the Dead Sea, the "Dead Sea Scrolls", demonstrate that a Hebrew or Aramaic origin of a text included in the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures in the Septuagint accepted by Christians was not the sole criterion for inclusion or exclusion in the Hebrew canon, but included consideration of evidence of content which supported Christian doctrine. Linguistic evidence shows that other Septuagint books which were excluded by rabbinical authority after A.D. 90 certainly had an original Hebrew or Aramaic text. See

"Palestinian texts of the Eighteen Benedictions from the Cairo Genizah"

The New Yorker: Page-Turner. March 1, 2013 Treasures in the Wall, by Emily Greenhouse (newyorker.com)
Jewish Virtual Library: Modern Jewish History: The Cairo Genizah, by Alden Oreck

"The fact remains that the nosrim were included with apostates and heretics and the wicked in the Genizah documents."

Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman: The Benediction Against the Minim (lawrenceschiffman.com)
DEFENDING THE BRIDE. THE CURSE AGAINST CHRISTIANS AT JAMNIA ABOUT 90 AD (defendingthebride.com)
The Jewish “Council” of Jamnia and Its Impact on the Old Testament Canon and New Testament Studies, Tim Gordon October 20, 2007 (academia.edu/6811953).
Martin Luther and the leaders of the Reformation cite as authoritative and determinative the canon of the Hebrew Bible as defined by rabbinical authorities who excluded and condemned as false the entire New Testament scriptures and Jesus as the Messiah. Luther rejected the seven books of the Old Testament, citing the Palestinian Canon as his authority. Clearly his reasons were doctrinal. However, his decision poses serious difficulties. What authority from God would Jews have in the Christian era to determine which books of the Old Testament were or were not divinely inspired? In 1529, Luther proposed adoption of the 39-book canon of rabbinic Judaism as the Old Testament canon of the Christian Bible. He justified his decision to exclude seven books from the Old Testament canon of 46 books by an appeal to precedent, citing Jerome who, around A.D. 400 had expressed concerns also voiced by his rabbinical sources that these books in Greek had no Hebrew counterparts. Research into the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran has discovered Hebrew copies of some of the disputed books, which makes their rejection on this ground unsupportable. This is an historical fact. Luther's principal reason for opposing these Old Testament books seems to be that they contain textual support for doctrines he had rejected, such as praying for the dead (2 Maccabees 12:42-45).
But if the Jews have been so entrusted with the word of God that they had therefore been given the divine authority to determine the canon of sacred scripture, as Luther and the Reformation Protestants maintain, because "unto them were committed the oracles of God" (see Romans 3:2), then the whole New Testament is excluded from the canon of the holy Bible because it does not meet established rabbinical criteria for what is sacred inspired scripture.
See Luther and the Canon of the Bible, by Jim Seghers (totuus.com) pdf
The Canon of the Bible (olswahiawa.org)
Wednesday, July 20, 2011. Can Protestants Rely Upon the "Council of Jamnia" for Their Bible? (catholicdefense.blogspot.com)
The Eastern Christian churches continued to use the Greek Septuagint from the 1st century to this day. The Western Church of Catholicism commissioned a Latin translation from Saint Jerome in the early 5th century which came to be known as the Vulgate. It remains the official Roman Catholic (Latin Rite) Bible, and as a translation of the Hebrew is an important witness to earlier readings of the pre-Masoretic Hebrew text.
Exploring the Origins of the Bible (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology): Canon Formation in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective Craig A. Evans, Emanuel Tov, Baker Academic, Oct 1, 2008. 272 pages (Google eBook)
Gideon Kotzé (University of Stellenbosch) SHORT NOTES ON THE VALUE OF THE SEPTUAGINT AND VULGATE FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF LAMENTATIONS 1:1 Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 36/1 (2010), pp.77-93 75.

"an exception was made as to the persecution of the Christians"

See Tertullian, To the Nations, Book I, Chapter VII (tertullian.org)

"Flavia Domitilla, the wife of Flavius Clemens, was banished to Pandateria,"

The island of Ventotene.
See Ponza: Island of History and Mystery (christine-whittemore.net) "Ponza and Ventotene (then called Pontia and Pandateria) were, in Imperial Rome, places of exile, where emperors sent family members who annoyed them, or political enemies."
Ventotene - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

"Anacletus had been Episcopos of Rome from A.D. 76 to 88 or perhaps to A.D. 91, and Clement of Rome was elected his successor, the third after St. Peter, from A.D. 88 or perhaps 91, to his death in 97."

According to Eusebius, Ecclesiatical History, Book III, Chapter 15, Anacletus had been Episcopos of Rome 12 years in the 12th year of Domitian, whose accession was A.D. 81, and Clement became his successor when he died. Other sources, external link sources cited in the Conservapedia article Pope Anacletus and provided here below, offer different and uncertain lengths of the Episcopate of Anacletus. He is mentioned again in the following chapter 61 of this Harmony of the Gospel (Conservative Version), according to the chronology of Eusebius to A.D. 93 (A.D. 81 + 12th year of reign = A.D. 93). This can appear confusing. In accordance with the editorial policy of this encyclopedic feature, all proposed dates for the episcopate of Anacletus have been included in this text, and the brief information with the dates of the end of his episcopate is drawn from those sources and inserted at each place in this text redaction according to those proposed chronological dates in sequence: A.D. 88, 91, 93.
Pope St. Anacletus - Catholic Encyclopedia (newadvent.org)
Pope Anacletus - New World Encyclopedia (newworldencyclopedia.org)
St. Anacletus | pope - Britannica (britannica.com)
Pope Saint Cletus (ucatholic.com)
Pope Cletus, Saint - Encyclopedia (catholic.com)

"Suetonius remembers, when he was a youth, that he was present, when an old man..."

See Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Domitian 12 (gutenberg.org)

"on balance, the tradition of Domitian as persecutor has been greatly overstated"

This position is clearly stated and presented in the following paper:
Contrast the following articles:
No Christian historian from the second century to the present claims that Domitian persecuted only Christians. Christian historians present the undeniable historical fact that catholic Christian believers were persecuted under him as a result of their religious belief in only one God.
Honest and reliable professional secular historians also affirm the Domitian persecution, but they do not misrepresent Christian writers as claiming that Domitian specifically singled out only Christianity and Christians, and no other group, for unique persecution as Nero did during his reign. Only those writers of history with an anti-Christian bias make such a charge, some of them by interpreting Christian writers' omission of mention of other groups persecuted by him, primarily the Jews, as a denial that Domitian also persecuted others, thus distorting historical fact, and implicitly suggesting that Christian apologists and historians are guilty of falsifying or distorting the facts of history and consequently that all Christian claims about the history of Christianity are consistently based on a persistent pattern of falsehoods and outright lies, which lies at the root of their superstitious religion from its very beginning. (Matthew 28:8-15; Acts 25:14-22; 28:22)
"The emperor was the head of the state. If the head was ill, the whole state was ill. This was one of the reasons why Christians had been persecuted when they refused to sacrifice to the emperor. With this act they attacked the whole system of the Roman state organization."
Failure to worship Domitian as Lord and God guaranteed persecution, and is evidence that Domitian persecuted Christians for their religion.
Emperor Trajan's reply to Pliny the Younger regarding Christians does not address the issue of persecution during the reign of Domitian, and is therefore irrelevant. Critics who cite Trajan's policy as evidence that there was no systematic empire-wide persecution of Christians under Domitian are misdirecting their readers.
In U.S. history, for example, the papers of Andrew Johnson's administration show no evidence of a civil war during his term in office, because that conflict occurred during the previous administration of Abraham Lincoln. No one believes that there was no civil war in the United States just because Johnson's records do not show evidence of that war during his term in office.

"We read of many others who suffered death or the loss of their goods"

See Dio Cassius, Roman History, Book LXVII, 11.3.

"Such views represent Christians as unjust defamers of the Roman Emperor, Domitian."

See article Alternative Facts: Domitian's Persecution of Christians: Was Roman emperor Domitian really the great persecutor of Christians? Mark Wilson, Bible History Daily (biblicalarchaeology.org) Mark Wilson discusses the book by secular historian Brian W. Jones, The Emperor Domitian (New York: Routledge, 1992) in which Jones asserts a lack of verifiable evidence that there ever was a persecution of Christians by Domitian, and that such a claim has utterly no historical foundation, but is rather a defamatory fiction. Wilson heartily recommends the book to Christians who still believe that Domitian persecuted Christians.
The Emperor Domitian, Brian W. Jones, Rutledge - London and New York (scribd.com) pdf—Text online
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 03.06.10 Alain M. Gowing, Washington University (bmcr.byrnmawr.edu) A thoroughly balanced and penetrating analytical review of Jones' book, The Emperor Domitian, which demonstrates that the author Brian W. Jones has an agenda of his own, and is not being entirely honest with his readers, or with the available historical material, which he represents as unreliable, hostile, slanted and dishonest with regard to Domitian, but does not prove to be so.
Reviewer: "But the 'inevitable hostility' of writers such as Pliny, Tacitus, or Suetonius is assumed rather than proven in this book."

"Death was staring us in the face"

Esther 13:18b adapted and applied to the Second Persecution.
Compare the following seven versions of this same Bible verse:
DR "because they saw certain death hanging over their heads." Esther XIII, 18b
KJV Apocrypha "because their death was before their eyes." Esther XIII, 18b
NRSV "for their death was before their eyes." Addition C 13:18b
REB "for death stared them in the face." Esther 13:18b
NAB "for death was staring them in the face." Esther C:11b
NJB "since death was staring them in the face." Esther 17i b
RSVCE "for their death was before their eyes." Esther 13:18b
The ever-present danger of martyrdom c. A.D. 90-96 in the last years of the reign of Domitian was as real as the impending threat of death in the days of Haman and Mordecai and Esther, and the active policy of persecution to death in the days of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and his successors and the Maccabees.
(Esther 3:5–16:24
the online text continues beyond 10:3
1 Maccabees 1:20–9:51 and 9:52–13:42
2 Maccabees 5:1–15:37.)

[The events of A.D. 81 through 90 are not included in the Conservative Bible New Testament.]

Sixty-one

Chapter 61 Historical texts
Bible text

In A.D. 92, according to tradition, Antipas of Pergamum, a personal disciple of the Apostle John, was roasted to death in a brazen or copper bull during the persecutions of Emperor Domitian. The Hieromartyr Antipas, the priest-martyr Antipas, had been made Episcopos of the Christian Assembly of Pergamum by John during the reign of Nero. His witness to the Lord Jesus Christ by word and deed and miracles of healing began turning the people of Pergamum from offering sacrificial worship to idols that can neither see, nor hear, nor move, nor breathe. The pagan priests complained vehemently that he was misleading the people by causing them to commit apostasy from their faith in their ancestral gods by his personal example of moral and spiritual virtue, the firmness of his faith in his God, and his constant preaching about Jesus the Anointed One. When they demanded that he stop, he refused. He would not submit to their demand to stop preaching Christ and offer sacrifice to the idols. They became enraged and dragged him to the temple of Artemis, and there they threw him into a glowing, red-hot copper or brazen metal bull where they normally put their sacrifices to the idols to cast demons out of their own people. He loudly prayed God to receive his soul and strengthen the faith of the Christians, and begged God to forgive those who were inflicting on him this torment. He then departed as peacefully as if he fell asleep. It is said that he died during the persecutions under Nero or Domitian sometime after A.D. 68, most probably about the year 92.

The same year A.D. 92, the Sarmatians crossed the Danube and attacked the Roman frontier in an act of war; and this war continued to rage even after the emperor Domitian’s death. That against the Catti in A.D. 83 had been unprovoked, but this against the Sarmatians was necessary. The entire Twenty-first Legion, Legio vigesima prima rapax, the Rapacious Twenty-First Legion of the Imperial Roman army with its commander was cut off; and in a campaign lasting about eight months in 92, it was finally destroyed. Beyond this fact few other details are available. Being thus compelled to return again to the Danube, Domitian fought the combined forces of the Suebi and the Sarmatians with some measure of success in the Second Pannonian War.

By January, A.D. 93, Domitian was back in Rome, not to accept a full triumph but the lesser ovatio, a sign perhaps that the business along the Danube was still unfinished. Previously, after several battles with the Catti and Daci, he had celebrated a double triumph; but for his successes against the Sarmatians, walking in a grand public procession, on foot, he only bore the laurel crown to Jupiter Capitolinus. In fact, during the final years of Domitian’s reign, the buildup of forces on the middle Danube and the appointment and transfer of key senior officials over the next three years into 96 suggest that a third Pannonian campaign may have been underway, again directed against the Suebi and Sarmatians. Even so, there is no certain documented historical testimony showing evidence of actual conflicts with them which extends beyond A.D. 97 into the reign of emperor Nerva.

The years A.D. 93 to 96 are regarded by contemporary historians of the time as a period of terror unsurpassed up to then.

After the A.D. 89 revolt of the homosexual general Lucius Antonius Saturninus four years before, Domitian in 93 organized against all the wealthy and noble families a series of bloodthirsty proscriptions, which are formal public condemnations, interdictions, and banishments into exile. He seldom gave an audience to persons held in custody, unless in private, and alone, and he himself holding their chains in his hand. To convince his domestic servants that the life of a master was not to be attempted on any pretext, however plausible, he condemned to death Epaphroditus his secretary, because it was believed that he had assisted Nero, in his extremity, to kill himself.

So eager was Domitian to prove himself a great conqueror, that it also appears that he was in fact still jealous of the military successes and reputation of the forcibly retired general Cnaeus Julius Agricola. At the age of fifty-four, in spite of his having received triumphal honors from Titus, Agricola was finally murdered by Domitian for no other reason than this, that the deeds which he had done were regarded by him as too great for a mere general, but were more worthy of an emperor. Agricola’s death in A.D. 93 is rumored to have been the work of Domitian, by having him poisoned. His death at the young age of fifty-four, again, put Domitian in a difficult position. As Tacitus tells us, “Domitian made a decent show of genuine sorrow; he was relieved of the need to hate, and he could always hide satisfaction more convincingly than fear.”

Domitian erected so many magnificent gates and arches, surmounted by representations of chariots drawn by four horses abreast, and other triumphal ornaments, in different quarters of the city, that a wit inscribed on one of the arches the Greek word Axkei, “Enough!” He permitted no statues to be erected for him in the Capitol building, unless they were of gold and silver, and of a certain weight.

He filled the office of consul seventeen times, which no one had ever done before him; the seven middle occasions of his consulship he filled in a series of seven successive years; but in these he scarcely had more than the title before he relinquished it; for he never continued in that office beyond the Kalends of May, one May (about four and a half months), and for the most part only to the Ides of January, thirteen January (about two weeks).

In the twelfth year of this same reign, in A.D. 93, according to Eusebius, after Anencletus had been Episcopos of Rome twelve years, he was succeeded by Clement, whom the apostle Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, shows had been his fellow laborer, in these words:

“With Clement and the rest of my fellow laborers, whose names are in the book of life.”

About this same time rumor reached Clement, the Episcopos of the Assembly in Rome, and also those who have no connection with Christianity, that one or two persons were engaging in rebellion against the Presbyters of the Assembly in Corinth, so that the name of the Lord was being blasphemed with ridicule and contempt. At the time of Clement a rebellion against the authority of the Presbyters did take place at Corinth as abundantly attested by Hegesippus. Saint Clement’s Epistle to the Corinthians was written about this time; Eusebius states that there is one extant letter of Clement, acknowledged by all as genuine, of considerable length and of great merit which he wrote in the name of the Assembly at Rome to the Assembly at Corinth. Here, while it speaks of the terrible trials of the Christians, it does not offer such denunciations of the persecutors as are found among the accounts of their contemporary Roman writers, Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio regarding Nero, Claudius and Domitian. The Roman Christian Assembly continued loyal to the empire, and sent up its prayers to God that He would direct the rulers and magistrates in the exercise of the power committed to their hands.

He wrote the following encyclical epistle:


The Assembly of God which currently dwells at Rome, to the Assembly of God which is currently dwelling at Corinth, to those who are called and sanctified by the will of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you, and peace, from Almighty God through Jesus Christ, be greatly increased.
Due, dear brothers, to the sudden, and successive, calamitous events which have happened to Ourselves, We feel that We have been rather tardy in turning Our attention to the points about which you consulted Us; and especially to that shameful and detestable rebellion, utterly abhorrent to the elect of God, which a few rash and self-confident persons have sparked to such a frenzied pitch, that your venerable and illustrious name, so worthy of being universally loved, has suffered grievous injury. For who has ever dwelt for even a short time among you, who did not find your faith to be as productive of virtue as it was firmly established? Who did not admire the sobriety and moderation of your godliness in Christ? Who did not proclaim the magnificence of your habitual hospitality? And who did not rejoice over your perfect and well-grounded knowledge? For you did all things without respect of persons, and walked in the commandments of God, obedient to those who had the rule over you, and giving all fitting honor to the Presbyters among you. You urged young men to be sober and seriously minded, you instructed your wives to do all things with a blameless and admirably pure conscience, loving their husbands as duty demands; and you Taught them that, living according to the standard of obedience, they should becomingly manage their household affairs, and marked in every respect by discretion.
Moreover, you were all distinguished by humility, and in no respect were you puffed up with pride, but you inspired obedience rather than extorted it, and were more willing to give than to receive. Content with the provision God had made for you, and carefully attending to His words, you were inwardly filled with His doctrine, and His sufferings were before your eyes. Thus a profound and abundant peace was given to all of you, and you had an insatiable desire to do good, while a full outpouring of the Holy Spirit was over you all. Full of holy intentions, and with true earnestness of mind and a godly confidence, you stretched out your hands to God Almighty, begging Him to be merciful to you if you had been guilty of any involuntary offense. Day and night you were anxious for the whole brotherhood, desiring that the number of God’s elect might be saved with mercy and a good conscience. You were sincere and uncorrupted, and unmindful of injuries between one another. Every kind of division and schism was abominable in your sight. You mourned over the transgressions of your neighbors: their deficiencies you regarded as your own. You never resented any act of kindness, being ready for every good work. Adorned with a thoroughly virtuous and religious life, you did all things in the awe of God. The commandments and ordinances of the Lord were written on the tablets of your hearts.
Every kind of honor and happiness was bestowed on you. And then was fulfilled that which is written,
My beloved ate and drank, and increased and became fat, and kicked.
Out of that flowed rivalry and envy, strife and rebellion, persecution and disorder, war and captivity. So the worthless rose up against the honored, those of no reputation against those who were renowned, the foolish against the wise, the young against those advanced in years. For this reason righteousness and peace have now departed far from you, since every one abandons the fear of God, and has become blind in His Faith, neither walks in the ordinances He established, nor acts the admirable role of a Christian, but walks according to his own wicked lusts, resuming the custom of that unrighteous and ungodly envy through which death itself entered into the world.
For thus it is written:
And it happened that after certain days, Cain brought from the fruits of the earth a sacrifice to God; and Abel also brought from the firstlings of his sheep, and from the fattest of them. And God respected Abel and his offerings, but Cain and his sacrifices He did not regard. And Cain was deeply grieved, and his face fell. And God said to Cain, Why are you grieved, and why has your face fallen? If you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, have you not sinned? Be at peace: your offering returns to yourself, and you shall again possess it.
And Cain said to his brother Abel, Let us go into the field. And it happened, while they were in the field, that Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.
You see, brothers, how envy and jealousy led to the murder of a brother. Through envy also, our father Jacob fled from the face of his brother Esau. Envy made Joseph persecuted to death, and become a slave. Envy compelled Moses to flee from the face of Pharaoh king of Egypt, when he heard these words from his fellow-countryman,
“Who made you a judge or ruler over us? Will you kill me, as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?”
On account of envy, Aaron and Miriam had to make their dwelling outside the camp. Envy brought Dathan and Abiram alive down into Hades, through the rebellion which they stirred up against God’s servant Moses. Through envy, David not only endured the hatred of foreigners, but was also persecuted by Saul king of Israel.
But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to the most recent spiritual heroes. Let us take the noble examples provided us in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Assembly have been persecuted and put to death. Let us set before our eyes the illustrious Apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors; and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, he departed to the place of glory due him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having Taught righteousness to the whole world, and gone to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects of Rome. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself to be a striking example of patience.
To these men who spent their lives in the practice of holiness, there is added a great multitude of the elect, who, because of envy having endured many indignities and tortures, have provided us with a most excellent example. Through envy, those women, the Danaids and Dircæ, being persecuted, after they had suffered terrible and unspeakable torments, finished the course of their faith with steadfastness, and though weak in body, received a noble reward. Envy has alienated wives from their husbands, and changed the saying of our father Adam,
“This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.”
Envy and strife have overthrown great cities, and uprooted mighty nations.
These things, beloved, We write to you, not merely to admonish you about your duty, but also to remind Ourselves. For We are struggling on the same arena, and the same conflict is assigned to both of us. Wherefore let us give up vain and fruitless cares, and approach to the glorious and venerable rule of our holy calling. Let us tend to what is good, pleasing, and acceptable in the sight of Him who formed us. Let us look steadfastly to the blood of Christ, and see how precious is that blood to God which, having been shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole world. Let us turn to every age that has passed, and learn that from generation to generation the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all those willing to be converted to Him. Noah preached repentance, and as many as listened to him were saved. Jonah proclaimed destruction to the Ninevites; but they, repenting of their sins, propitiated God by prayer, and obtained salvation, although they were aliens to the covenant of God.
The ministers of the grace of God, by the Holy Spirit, have spoken of repentance; and the Lord of all things has himself declared with an oath regarding it,
As I live, says the Lord, I desire not the death of the sinner, but rather his repentance;
adding, moreover, this gracious declaration,
Repent, O house of Israel, of your iniquity. Say to the children of my people, Though your sins reach from earth to heaven, and though they be redder than scarlet, and blacker than sack-cloth, yet if you turn to me with your whole heart, and say, Father! I will listen to you, as to a holy people.
And in another place He speaks thus:
Wash you, and become clean; put away the wickedness of your souls from before my eyes; cease from your evil ways, and learn to do well; seek out judgment, deliver the oppressed, judge the fatherless, and see that justice is done to the widow; and come, and let us reason together.
He declares,
Though your sins be like crimson, I will make them white as snow; though they be like scarlet, I will whiten them like wool. And if you are willing and obey me, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse, and will not hearken unto me, the sword shall devour you, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.
Desiring, therefore, that all His beloved should be partakers of repentance, He has, by His almighty will, established these declarations.
For this reason, let us submit to obedience to His excellent and glorious will; and imploring His mercy and loving-kindness, while we forsake all fruitless labors and strife, and envy, which leads to death, let us turn and have recourse to His compassions. Let us steadfastly contemplate those who have perfectly served his excellent glory. Let us take as an example Enoch, who, being found righteous in obedience, was translated, and death was never known to have happened to him. Noah, being found faithful, preached regeneration to the world through his ministry; and by him the Lord saved the animals which, with one agreement, entered the ark. Abraham, called the Friend, was found faithful, since he gave obedience to the words of God. He, in the exercise of obedience, went out from his own country, and from his kindred, and from his father’s house, in order that, by forsaking a small territory, and a weak family, and an insignificant house, he might inherit the promises of God. For God said to him,
Get you out of your country, and away from your kindred, and from your father’s house, to the land which I shall show you. And I will make you a great nation, and will bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be blessed. And I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you; and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
And again, when he separated from Lot, God said to him,
Lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are now, north, and south, and east, and west; for all the land you see, to you I will give it, and to your offspring for ever. And I will make your offspring like the dust particles of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust particles of the earth, then shall your seed also be numbered.
And again the Scripture says,
God brought Abram out, and spoke to him, “Look up now to heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them; so shall your seed be.” And Abram believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
On account of his faith and hospitality, a son was given him in his old age; and in the exercise of obedience, he offered him as a sacrifice to God on one of the mountains which He showed him.
On account of his hospitality and godliness, Lot was saved out of Sodom when all the country round about was punished by means of fire and brimstone, the Lord thus making it evident that He does not forsake those who have confident expectation in Him, but gives up those who abandon Him to punishment and torture. For Lot’s wife, who left with him, being of a different mind from him, and not continuing in agreement with him regarding the command which had been given them, was made an example of, so that she became a pillar of salt to this day. This was done so that all might know that those who are of a double mind, and who distrust the power of God, bring down judgment on themselves and become a sign to all succeeding generations.
On account of her faith and hospitality, Rahab the harlot was saved. For when spies were sent by Joshua, the son of Nun, to Jericho, the king of the country discovered that they had come to spy out their land, and sent men to seize them, in order that, when taken, they might be put to death. But the hospitable Rahab receiving them, concealed them on the roof of her house under some stalks of flax. And when the men sent by the king arrived and said,
There came men to you who are to spy out our land; bring them out, for so the king commands,
she answered them,
The two men whom you seek came to me, but quickly left again and are gone,
thus not revealing the spies to them. Then she said to the men,
I know with assurance that the Lord your God has given you this city, for the fear and dread of you have fallen on its inhabitants. Therefore when you have taken it, keep me and the house of my father in safety. And they said to her, It shall be as you have said to us. Therefore, as soon as you know that we have come, you are to gather all your family under your roof, and they shall be safe, but all who are found outside your dwelling shall die.
Moreover, they gave her a sign to this effect, that she should hang outside her house a scarlet cord. And thus they made it evident that redemption should flow through the blood of the Lord to all those who believe and have confident expectation in God. You see, beloved, that there was not only faith, but prophecy, in this woman.
Therefore, brothers, let us be humble minded, discarding all haughtiness, and pride, and foolishness, and angry feelings; and let us act according to what is written (for the Holy Spirit says,
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, neither let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glories glory in the Lord,
in diligently seeking Him, and doing judgment and righteousness), being especially mindful of the words of the Lord Jesus which He said in Teaching us meekness and long-suffering. For this He said:
Be merciful, that you may obtain mercy; forgive, that it may be forgiven you; as you do, so shall it be done to you; as you judge, so shall you be judged; as you are kind, so shall kindness be shown to you; with what measure you dispense, with the same shall it be measured to you.
By this precept and by these rules let us establish ourselves, so that we act with all humility in obedience to His holy words. For the holy word says,
On whom shall I look, except him who is meek and peaceable, and who trembles at my words?
It is therefore right and holy, men and brothers, to rather obey God than to follow those who, through pride and rebellion, have become the leaders of a detestable rivalry. For we shall incur no slight injury, but rather great danger, if we rashly yield ourselves to the inclinations of men who aim at exciting strife and commotions, so as to draw us away from what is good. Let us be kind one to another after the pattern of the tender mercy and benign nature of our Creator. For it is written,
The kind-hearted shall inhabit the land, and the guiltless shall be left on it, but transgressors shall be destroyed from off the face of it.
And again the Scripture says,
I saw the ungodly highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon: I passed by, and, behold, he was not there; and I diligently sought his place, and could not find it. Preserve innocence, and look on equity: for there shall be something remaining for the peaceable man.
Let us therefore, hold to those who cultivate peace with godliness, and not to those who hypocritically profess to desire it. For the Scripture says in a certain place,
This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
And again:
They bless with their mouth, but curse with their heart.
And again it says,
They loved Him with their mouth, and lied to Him with their tongue; but their heart was not right with Him, neither were they faithful in keeping His covenant. Let deceitful lips become silent, and let the Lord destroy all lying lips, and the boastful tongue of those who have said, Let us exalt our tongue: our lips are our own; who is lord over us? For the oppression of the poor, and for the sighing of the needy, will I now arise, says the Lord: I will place him in safety; I will deal confidently with him.
For Christ is from those who are humble-minded, and not from those who exalt themselves over His flock. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Sceptre of the majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride or arrogance, although He might have done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy Spirit had declared regarding Him. For He says,
Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We have declared our message in His presence: He is, as it were, a child, and like a root in thirsty ground; He has no form nor glory, yes, we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness; but His form was without eminence, yes, deficient in comparison with the ordinary form of men. He is a man exposed to stripes and suffering, and acquainted with the endurance of grief: for His face was turned away; He was despised, and not esteemed. He bears our iniquities, and is in sorrow for our sakes; yet we supposed that on His own account He was exposed to labor, and stripes, and affliction. But He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; every man has wandered in his own way; and the Lord has delivered Him up for our sins, while He in the midst of His sufferings opens not His mouth. He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before her shearer is dumb, so He opens not His mouth. In His humiliation His judgment was taken away; who shall declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth. For the transgressions of my people was He brought down to death. And I will give the wicked for His sepulchre, and the rich for His death, because He did no iniquity, neither was deceit found in His mouth. And the Lord is pleased to purify him by stripes. If you make an offering for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived offspring. And the Lord is pleased to relieve Him of the affliction of His soul, to show Him light, and to form Him with understanding, to justify the Just One who ministers well to many; and He Himself shall carry their sins. On this account He shall inherit many, and shall divide the spoil of the strong; because His soul was delivered to death, and He was reckoned among the transgressors, and He bore the sins of many, and for their sins was He delivered.
And again He says,
I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people. All that see me have derided me; they have spoken with their lips; they have wagged their head, saying, He had confident expectation in God, let Him deliver Him, let Him save Him, since He delights in Him.
You see, beloved, the example which has been given us; for if the Lord thus humbled Himself, how should we act, who have, through Him, come under the yoke of His grace?
Let us be imitators also of those who in goat-skins and sheep-skins went about proclaiming the coming of Christ; I mean Elijah, Elisha, and Ezekiel among the prophets, with those others to whom a similar testimony is given in Scripture. Abraham was specially honored, and was called the Friend of God; yet he, with complete sincerity respecting the glory of God, humbly declared,
I am only dust and ashes.
Moreover, it is thus written of Job,
Job was a righteous man, and blameless, truthful, God-fearing, and one who kept himself from all evil.
But bringing an accusation against himself, he said,
No man is free from defilement, even if his life is only one day.
Moses was called faithful in all God’s house; and through him as his instrument, God punished Egypt with plagues and tortures. Yet he, though thus greatly honored, did not adopt lofty speech, but said, when the divine revealing word came to him out of the bush,
Who am I, that You send me? I am a man of feeble voice and slow tongue.
And again he said,
I am only like the smoke of a pot.
But what shall we say concerning David, to whom such testimony was given, and of whom God said,
“I have found a man after my own heart, David the son of Jesse; and in everlasting mercy have I anointed him”?
Yet this same man says to God,
Have mercy on me, O Lord, according to Your great mercy; and according to the multitude of Your compassions, blot out my transgression. Wash me still more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is ever before me. Against You only have I sinned, and done that which is evil in Your sight; that You may be justified in Your sayings, and may overcome when You are judged. For, behold, I was conceived in transgressions, and in sins did my mother conceive me. For, behold, You have loved truth; the secret and hidden things of wisdom have You shown me. You shall sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed; You shall wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. You shall make me to hear joy and gladness; my bones, which have been humbled, shall exult. Turn away Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and establish me by Your governing Spirit. I will teach transgressors Your ways, and the ungodly shall be converted unto You. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation: my tongue shall exult in Your righteousness. O Lord, You shall open my mouth, and my lips shall show forth Your praise. For if You had desired sacrifice, I would have given it; You will not delight in burnt-offerings. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a bruised spirit; a broken and a contrite heart God will not despise.
Thus the humility and godly submission of such great and illustrious men have rendered not only us, but also all the generations before us, better; even as many as have received His revealed words in fear and truth. Wherefore, having so many great and glorious examples set before us, let us turn again to the practice of that peace which from the beginning was the target set before us; and let us look steadfastly to the Father and Creator of the universe, and hold to His mighty and surpassingly great gifts and benefactions of peace. Let us contemplate Him with our understanding, and look with the eyes of our soul to His long-suffering will. Let us reflect on how free from the wrath He is toward all His creation.
The heavens, revolving under His government, are subject to Him in peace. Day and night run the course appointed by Him, in no wise hindering each other. The sun and moon, with the companies of the stars, roll on in harmony according to His command, within their prescribed limits, and without any deviation. The fruitful earth, according to His will, brings forth food in abundance, at the proper seasons, for man and beast and all the living beings on it, never hesitating, nor changing any of the ordinances which He has fixed. The unsearchable places of the deeps, and the indescribable arrangements of the lower world, are restrained by the same laws. The vast unmeasurable sea, gathered together by His working into various basins, never passes beyond the bounds placed around it, but does as He has commanded. For He said,
Thus far shall you come, and your waves shall be broken within you.
The ocean, impassable to man and the worlds beyond it, are regulated by the same decrees of the Lord. The seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, peacefully give place to one another. The winds in their several quarters fulfill, at the proper time, their service without hindrance. The ever-flowing fountains, formed both for enjoyment and health, provide without fail their breasts for the life of men. The very smallest of living beings meet together in peace and concord. All these the great Creator and Lord of all has appointed to exist in peace and harmony; while He does good to all, but most abundantly to us who have
fled for refuge to His compassions through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory and majesty for ever and ever. Amen.
Take heed, beloved, lest His many kindnesses lead to the condemnation of us all. For it must be thus, unless we walk worthy of Him and with one mind do those things which are good and well-pleasing in His sight. For the Scripture says in a certain place,
The Spirit of the Lord is a candle searching the secret parts of the belly.
Let us reflect how near He is, and realize that none of the thoughts or reasonings in which we engage are hidden from Him. It is therefore right, that we should not abandon the post which His will has assigned us. Let us rather offend those men who are foolish, and inconsiderate, and lifted up, and who glory in the pride of their speech, than offend God. Let us reverence the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood was given for us; let us esteem those who have the rule over us; let us honor the elderly among us; let us train up the young men in the fear of God; let us direct our wives to that which is good. Let them exhibit the lovely habit of purity in all their conduct; let them show outwardly the sincere disposition of meekness; let them make evident the command they have of their tongue, by their manner of speaking; let them display their love, not by preferring one over another, but by showing equal affection to all who piously fear God. Let your children receive true Christian training; let them learn how greatly availing humility is with God—how much the spirit of pure affection can prevail with Him—how excellent and great His fear is, and how it saves all those who conduct themselves in it with a pure mind. For He is a Searcher of the thoughts and desires of the heart: His breath is in us; and when He pleases, He will take it away.
Now the faith which is in Christ confirms all these admonitions. For He Himself by the Holy Spirit thus addresses us:
Come, you children, hearken to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is he who desires life, and loves to see good days? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The Righteous cried, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his troubles. Many are the stripes appointed for the wicked; but mercy shall encircle those who have confident expectation in the Lord.
The all-merciful and beneficent Father has profound depths of compassion toward those who fear Him, and kindly and lovingly bestows His favors on those who come to Him with a simple mind. For this reason let us not be double-minded; neither let our soul be lifted up on account of His exceedingly great and glorious gifts. Far from us be that which is written,
Wretched are those who are of a double mind, and of a doubting heart; who say, These things we have heard even in the times of our fathers; but, behold, we have grown old, and none of them has happened to us;
You foolish ones! compare yourselves to a tree; take for instance the vine. First of all, it sheds its leaves, then it buds, next it puts forth leaves, and then it flowers; after that comes the sour grape, and then follows the ripened fruit. You perceive how in a little time the fruit of a tree comes to maturity. Of a truth, soon and suddenly shall His will be accomplished, as the Scripture also bears witness, saying,
Speedily will He come, and will not tarry; and, The Lord shall suddenly come to His Temple, even the Holy One, for whom you look.
Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord continually proves to us that there shall be a future resurrection, of which He has made the Lord Jesus Christ the first-fruits by raising Him from the dead. Let us contemplate, beloved, the resurrection which is at all times taking place. Day and night declare to us a resurrection. The night sinks to sleep, and the day arises; the day again departs, and the night comes on. Let us behold the fruits of the earth, how the sowing of grain takes place. The sower goes forth, and throws it on the ground, and the seed being thus scattered, though dry and naked when it fell on the earth, is gradually dissolved. Then out of its dissolution the mighty power of the providence of the Lord raises it up again, and from one seed many arise and bring forth fruit.
Let us consider that wonderful sign of the resurrection which takes place in eastern lands, that is, in Arabia and the countries round about. There is a certain bird which is called a phœnix. This is the only one of its kind, and lives five hundred years. And when the time of its dissolution draws near that it must die, it builds itself a nest of frankincense, and myrrh, and other spices, into which, when the time is fulfilled, it enters and dies. But as the flesh decays a certain kind of worm is produced, which, being nourished by the juices of the dead bird, brings forth feathers. Then, when it has gained strength, it takes up that nest in which are the bones of its parent, and bearing these it passes from the land of Arabia into Egypt, to the city called Heliopolis. And flying in open day in the sight of all men, it places them on the altar of the sun, and having done this, quickly goes back to its former abode. The priests then inspect the chronicles of the dates, and find that it has returned exactly when the five hundredth year was completed.
Do we then think it is any great and wonderful thing for the Maker of all things to raise up again those who have piously served Him in the assurance of a good faith, when even by a bird He shows us the strength of His ability to fulfil His promise? For the Scripture says in a certain place,
You shall raise me up, and I shall confess unto You; and again, I laid me down, and slept; I awoke, because You are with me;
and again, Job says,
You shall raise up this flesh of mine, which has suffered all these things.
Having then this confident expectation, let our souls be bound to Him who is Faithful in His Promises, and Just in His Judgments. He who has commanded us not to lie, shall Himself much more not lie; for nothing is impossible with God, except to lie. Let His Faith therefore be stirred up again within us, and let us consider that all things are near with Him. By the word of His might He established all things, and by His word He can overthrow them. Who shall say to Him, What have you done? Or, Who shall resist the power of His strength? When, and just as He pleases, He will do all things, and none of the things determined by Him shall pass away. All things are open before Him, and nothing can be hidden from His counsel.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handy-work. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge. And there are no words or speeches of which the voices are not heard.
Since then all things are seen and heard by God, let us fear Him, and forsake those wicked works which proceed from evil desires; so that, through His mercy, we may be protected from the judgments to come. For where can any of us flee from His mighty hand? Or what world will receive any of those who run away from Him? For the Scripture says in a certain place,
Where shall I go, and where shall I be hidden from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I go away even to the uttermost parts of the earth, there is Your right hand; if I make my bed in the abyss, there is Your Spirit.
Where, then, shall anyone go, or where shall he escape from Him who comprehends all things?
Let us then draw near to Him with holiness of spirit, lifting up pure and undefiled hands unto Him, loving our gracious and merciful Father, who has made us partakers in the blessings of His elect. For thus it is written,
When the Most High divided the nations, when He scattered the sons of Adam, He fixed the bounds of the nations according to the number of the Messengers of God. His people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, and Israel the lot of His inheritance.
And in another place the Scripture says,
Behold, the Lord takes to Himself a nation out of the midst of the nations, as a man takes the first-fruits of his threshing-floor; and from that nation shall come forth the Most Holy.
Seeing, therefore, that we are the portion of the Holy One, let us do all those things which pertain to holiness, avoiding all evil-speaking, all abominable and impure embraces, together with all drunkenness, seeking for change, all abominable lusts, detestable adultery, and execrable pride. For
God (says the Scripture) resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Let us hold, then, to those to whom grace has been given by God. Let us clothe ourselves with concord and humility, ever practicing self-control, standing far off from all whispering and evil-speaking, being justified by our works, and not our words. For the Scripture says,
He that speaks much, shall also hear much in answer. And does he that is ready in speech count himself righteous? Blessed is he who is born of woman, who lives but a short time: be not given to much speaking. Let our praise be in God, and not of ourselves; for God hates those who commend themselves.
Let testimony to our good deeds be given by others, as it was in the case of our righteous forefathers. Boldness, and arrogance, and audacity belong to those who are accursed of God; but moderation, humility, and meekness to those who are blessed by Him.
Let us hold then to His blessing, and consider what are the means of possessing it. Let us think over the things which have taken place from the beginning. For what reason was our father Abraham blessed? Was it not because he worked righteousness and truth through faith? Isaac, with perfect confidence, as if knowing what was to happen, cheerfully gave himself as a sacrifice. Jacob, by reason of his brother, went forth with humility from his own land, and came to Laban and served him; and there was given to him the sceptre of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Whoever will candidly consider each particular, will recognise the greatness of the gifts which were given by him. For from him have sprung the priests and all the Levites who minister at the altar of God. From him also was descended our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh. From him arose kings, princes, and rulers of the race of Judah. Nor are his other tribes in small glory, since God had promised,
Your offspring shall be as the stars of heaven.
All these were therefore highly honored, and made great, not for their own sake, or for their own works, or for the righteousness which they wrought, but through the operation of His will. And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that Faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
What shall we do, then, brethren? Shall we become slothful in well-doing, and cease from the practice of love? God forbid that any such course should be followed by us! But rather let us hasten with all energy and readiness of mind to perform every good work. For the Creator and Lord of all Himself rejoices in His works. For by His infinitely great power He established the heavens, and by His incomprehensible wisdom He adorned them. He also divided the earth from the water which surrounds it, and fixed it upon the immovable foundation of His own will. The animals also which are upon it He commanded by His own word into existence. So likewise, when He had formed the sea, and the living creatures which are in it, He enclosed them within their proper bounds by His own power. Above all, with His holy and undefiled hands He formed man, the most excellent of His creatures, and truly great through the understanding given him—the express likeness of His own image. For thus says God:
Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness. So God made man; male and female He created them.
Having thus finished all these things,
He approved them, and blessed them, and said, Increase and multiply.
We see, then, how all righteous men have been adorned with good works, and how the Lord Himself, adorning Himself with His works, rejoiced. Having therefore such an example, let us without delay readily concent to His will, and let us work the work of righteousness with our whole strength.
The good servant receives the bread of his labor with confidence; the lazy and slothful cannot look his employer in the face. It is requisite, therefore, that we be prompt in the practice of well-doing; for from Him are all things. And thus He forewarns us:
Behold, the Lord comes, and His reward is before His face, to render to every man according to his work.
He exhorts us, therefore, with our whole heart to attend to this, that we be not lazy or slothful in any good work. Let our boasting and our confidence be in Him. Let us submit ourselves to His will. Let us consider the whole multitude of His angels, how they stand ever ready to minister to His will. For the Scripture says,
Ten thousand times ten thousand stood around Him, and thousands of thousands ministered unto Him, and cried, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Sabaoth; the whole creation is full of His glory.
And let us therefore, conscientiously gathering together in harmony, call out to Him earnestly, as with one mouth, that we may be made partakers of His great and glorious promises. For the Scripture says,
Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which He has prepared for them that wait for Him.
How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of God! Life in immortality, splendor in righteousness, truth in perfect confidence, faith in assurance, self-control in holiness! And all these fall under the recognition of our individual understandings now; what then shall be those things which are prepared for those who wait for Him? The Creator and Father of all worlds, the Most Holy, alone knows their amount and their beauty. Let us therefore earnestly strive to be found among the number of those who wait for Him, in order that we may share in His promised gifts. But how, beloved, shall this be done? Only if our understanding is fixed by faith toward God; only if we earnestly seek the things which are pleasing and acceptable to Him; only if we do the things which are in harmony with His blameless will; and only if we follow the way of truth, casting away from us all unrighteousness and iniquity, along with all covetousness, strife, evil practices, deceit, whispering, and evil-speaking, all hatred of God, pride and haughtiness, vain glory and ambition. For those who do such things are hateful to God; and not only they who do them, but also those who take pleasure in those who do them. For the Scripture says,
But to the sinner God said, For what reason do you declare my statutes, and take my covenant into your mouth, seeing you hate instruction, and cast my words behind you? When you saw a thief, you agreed with him, and took your part with adulterers. Your mouth has abounded with wickedness, and your tongue contrived deceit. You sit, and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done, and I kept silence; you thought, wicked one, that I would be like yourself. But I will reprove you, and set yourself before you. Consider now these things, you who forget God, lest He tear you in pieces, like a lion, and there be none to deliver. The sacrifice of praise will glorify me, and there is a road by which I will show him the salvation of God.
This is the road, beloved, on which we find our Savior, even Jesus Christ, the High Priest of all our offerings, the defender and helper of our infirmity. By Him we look up to the heights of heaven. By Him we behold, as in a reflecting glass, His immaculate and most excellent visage. By Him are the eyes of our hearts opened. By Him our foolish and darkened understanding blossoms up new toward His marvellous light. By Him the Lord has willed that we should taste immortal knowledge, who, being the brightness of His majesty, is, by so much, greater than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For it is thus written,
Who makes His Messengers spirits, and His Ministers a flame of fire. But concerning His Son the Lord spoke thus: You are my Son, today have I begotten You. Ask of me, and I will give You the heathen for Your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Your possession. And again He says to Him, Sit at my right hand, up to the day I make Your enemies Your footstool.
But who are His enemies? All the wicked, and those who set themselves to oppose the will of God.
Let us then, men and brothers, with all energy act the part of soldiers, in accordance with His holy commandments. Let us consider those who serve under our generals, with what order, obedience, and submissiveness they perform the things that are commanded them. All are not prefects, nor commanders of a thousand, nor of a hundred, nor of fifty, nor the like, but each one in his own rank performs the things commanded by the king and the generals. The great cannot subsist without the small, nor the small without the great. There is a kind of mixture in all things, and from this arises mutual advantage. Let us take our body for an example. The head is nothing without the feet, and the feet are nothing without the head; yes, the very smallest members of our body are necessary and useful to the whole body. But all work harmoniously together, and are under one common rule for the preservation of the whole body.
Let our whole body, then, be preserved in Christ Jesus; and let every one be subject to his neighbor, according to the special gift bestowed upon him. Let the strong not despise the weak, and let the weak show respect to the strong. Let the rich man provide for the wants of the poor; and let the poor man bless God, because He has given him one by whom his need may be supplied. Let the wise man display his wisdom, not by mere words, but through good deeds. Let the humble not give testimony to himself, but leave witness to be given about him by another. Let him who is pure in the flesh not grow proud about it and boast, knowing that it was another who bestowed on him the gift of continence. Let us consider, then, brethren, of what matter we were made—who and what manner of beings we came into the world, as it were out of a sepulchre, and from utter darkness. He who made us and fashioned us, having prepared His bountiful gifts for us before we were born, introduced us into His world. Since, therefore, we receive all these things from Him, we ought for everything to give Him thanks; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Foolish and inconsiderate men, who have neither wisdom nor instruction, mock and deride us, being eager to exalt themselves in their own conceits. For what can a mortal man do, or what strength is there in one made out of the dust? For it is written,
There was no shape before my eyes, only I heard a sound, and a voice saying, What then? Shall a man be pure before the Lord? Or shall such an one be counted blameless in his deeds, seeing He does not confide in His servants, and has charged even His angels with perversity? The heaven is not clean in His sight: how much less they that dwell in houses of clay, of which also we ourselves were made! He smote them as a moth; and from morning even to evening they endure not. Because they could furnish no assistance to themselves, they perished. He breathed upon them, and they died, because they had no wisdom. But call now, if any one will answer you, or if you will look to any of the holy angels; for wrath destroys the foolish man, and envy kills him that is in error. I have seen the foolish taking root, but their habitation was presently consumed. Let their sons be far from safety; let them be despised before the gates of those less than themselves, and there shall be none to deliver. For what was prepared for them, the righteous shall eat; and they shall not be delivered from evil.
These things therefore being obvious to us, and since we look into the depths of the divine knowledge, it is best for us to do all things in their proper order which the Lord has commanded us to perform at stated times. He has decreed offerings to be presented and service to be performed to Him, and this not thoughtlessly or irregularly, but at the appointed times and hours. Where and by whom He desires these things to be done, He Himself has fixed by His own supreme will, in order that all things, being piously done according to His good pleasure, may be acceptable unto Him. Those, therefore, who present their offerings at the appointed times, are accepted and blessed; for since they follow the laws of the Lord, they sin not. For his own peculiar services are assigned to the high priest, and their own proper place is prescribed to the priests, and their own special ministrations designated to the Levites. The layman is bound by the laws that pertain to laymen. Let every one of you, brethren, give thanks to God in his own order, living in all good conscience, with becoming gravity, and not going beyond the rule of the ministry prescribed to him.
Not in every place, brethren, are the daily sacrifices offered, or the peace-offerings, or the sin-offerings and the trespass-offerings, but in Jerusalem only. And even there they are not offered in any place, but only at the altar before the Temple, that which is offered being first carefully examined by the high priest and the ministers already mentioned. Those, therefore, who do anything beyond that which is agreeable to His will, are punished with death.
You see, brethren, that the greater the knowledge that has been entrusted to us, the greater also is the danger to which we are exposed. The Apostles have preached the Gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ has done so from God. Christ therefore was sent forth by God, and the Apostles by Christ. Both these appointments, then, were made in an orderly way, according to the will of God. Having therefore received their orders, and being fully assured by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and established in the word of God, with full assurance of the Holy Ghost, they went forth proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at hand. And thus preaching through countries and cities, they appointed the first fruits of their labors, having first proved them by the Spirit, to be Episcopes and Deacons of those who should afterward believe. Nor was this any new thing, since indeed many ages before it was written concerning Episcopes and Deacons. For thus says the Scripture in a certain place,
I will appoint their episcopes in righteousness, and their deacons in faith.
And what marvel is it if those in Christ who were entrusted with such a duty by God, appointed those Ministers before mentioned, when the blessed Moses also, a faithful servant in all his house, noted down in the sacred books all the injunctions which were given him, and when the other prophets also followed him, bearing witness with one consent to the ordinances which he had appointed? For, when rivalry arose concerning the priesthood, and the tribes were contending among themselves as to which of them should be adorned with that glorious title, he commanded the twelve princes of the tribes to bring him their rods, each one being inscribed with the name of the tribe. And he took them and bound them together, and sealed them with the rings of the princes of the tribes, and laid them up in the tabernacle of witness on the table of God. And having shut the doors of the tabernacle, he sealed the keys, as he had done the rods, and said to them,
“Men and brethren, the tribe whose rod shall blossom has God chosen to fulfil the office of the priesthood, and to minister unto Him.”
And when the morning had come, he assembled all Israel, six hundred thousand men, and showed the seals to the princes of the tribes, and opened the tabernacle of witness, and brought forth the rods. And the rod of Aaron was found not only to have blossomed, but to bear fruit upon it. What do you think, beloved? Did Moses not know beforehand that this would happen? Undoubtedly he knew; but he acted thus, that there might be no rebellion in Israel, and that the name of the true and only God might be glorified; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Our Apostles also knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be strife on account of the office of the Episcopate. For this reason, therefore, since they had obtained a perfect foreknowledge of this, they appointed those ministers already mentioned, and afterward gave instructions, that when these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry. We are of opinion, therefore, that those appointed by them, or afterward by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole Church, the whole Christian Assembly, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ, in a humble, peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry. For our sin will not be small, if we expel from the Episcopate those who have blamelessly and holily fulfilled its duties. Blessed are those Presbyters who, having finished their course before now, have obtained a fruitful and perfect departure from this world; for they have no fear lest any one deprive them of the place now appointed them. But we see that you have removed some men of excellent behavior from the ministry which they fulfilled blamelessly and with honor.
You are fond of contention, brothers, and full of zeal about things which do not pertain to salvation. Look carefully into the Scriptures, which are the true utterances of the Holy Spirit. Observe that nothing of an unjust or counterfeit character is written in them. There you will not find that the righteous were cast off by men who themselves were holy. The righteous were indeed persecuted, but only by the wicked. They were cast into prison, but only by the unholy; they were stoned, but only by transgressors; they were slain, but only by the accursed, and those who had conceived an unrighteous envy against them. Exposed to such sufferings, they endured them gloriously. For what shall we say, brothers? Was Daniel cast into the den of lions by those who feared God? Were Ananias, and Azarias, and Michael shut up in a furnace of fire by those who observed the great and glorious worship of the Most High? Far from us be such a thought! Who, then, were those who did such things? The hateful, and those full of all wickedness, were roused to such a pitch of fury that they inflicted torture on those who served God with a holy and blameless purpose of heart, not knowing that the Most High is the Defender and Protector of all who with a pure conscience venerate His all-excellent name; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. But they who with confidence endured these things are now heirs of glory and honor, and have been exalted and made illustrious by God in their memorial for ever and ever. Amen.
It is therefore right, brothers, that we should follow such examples; since it is written,
Hold to the holy, for those that hold to them shall themselves be made holy.
And again, in another place, the Scripture says,
With a harmless man you shall prove yourself harmless, and with an elect man you shall be elect, and with a perverse man you shall show yourself perverse.
Therefore, let us hold to the innocent and righteous, since these are the elect of God. Why are there strifes, and commotions, and divisions, and schisms, and wars among you? Have we all not one God and one Christ? Is there not one Spirit of grace poured out upon us? And have we not one calling in Christ? Why do we divide and tear in pieces the members of Christ, and raise up strife against our own body, and have reached such a height of madness as to forget that we are members of one another? Remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, how He said,
Woe to that man by whom offenses come! It would be better for him that he had never been born, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my elect. Yes, it would be better for him that a millstone should be hung about his neck, and he should be sunk in the depths of the sea, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my little ones.
Your division has overthrown the faith of many, has discouraged many, has given rise to doubt in many, and has caused grief to us all. And still your rebellion continues.
Read the epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul. What did he write to you at the time when the Gospel first began to be preached? Truly, under the inspiration of the Spirit, he wrote to you concerning himself, and Cephas, and Apollos, because even then parties had been formed among you. But that inclination for one above another brought less guilt on you, since you then showed your differences of partiality toward Apostles, already of high reputation, and toward a man whom they had approved. But now consider who they are who have perverted you, and lessened the renown of your far-famed brotherly love. It is disgraceful, beloved, yes, highly disgraceful, and unworthy of your Christian profession, that such a thing should be heard of, that the most steadfast and ancient Assembly of the Corinthians should, on account of one or two persons, engage in mutiny against its Presbyters. And this rumor has reached not only Us, but also those who are unconnected with Us; so that, through your infatuation, the name of the Lord is blasphemed, while danger is also brought upon yourselves.
Therefore, let us with all haste put an end to this state of things; and let us fall down before the Lord, and beg Him with tears, that He would mercifully be reconciled to us, and restore us to our former appropriate and holy practice of brotherly love. For such conduct is the gate of righteousness, which is set open for the attainment of life, as it is written,
Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go in by them, and will praise the Lord: this is the gate of the Lord: the righteous shall enter in by it.
Therefore, although many gates have been set open, yet this gate of righteousness is that gate in Christ by which all those are blessed who have entered in and have directed their path in holiness and righteousness, doing all things without disorder. Let a man be faithful: let him be powerful in the utterance of knowledge; let him be wise in judging of words; let him be pure in all his deeds; yet the more he seems to be superior to others in these respects, the more humble-minded he ought to be, and seek the common good of all, and not merely his own advantage.
Let him who has love in Christ keep the commandments of Christ. Who can describe the blessed bond of the love of God? What man is able to tell the excellence of its beauty, as it ought to be told? The height to which love exalts is unspeakable. Love unites us to God. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love bears all things, is long-suffering in all things. There is nothing base, nothing arrogant in love. Love permits no schisms: love gives rise to no rebellions: love does all things in harmony. By love all the elect of God have been made perfect; without love nothing is well-pleasing to God. In love the Lord has taken us to Himself. On account of the love He bore us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His blood for us by the will of God; His flesh for our flesh, and His soul for our souls.
You see, beloved, how great and wonderful a thing is love, and that there is no describing its perfection. Who is fit to be found in it, except those whom God has guaranteed to render so? Let us pray, therefore, and implore His mercy, that we may live blamelessly in love, free from all human preferences for one above another. All the generations from Adam even to this day have passed away; but those who, through the grace of God, have been made perfect in love, now possess a place among the godly, and shall be made evident at the revelation of the kingdom of Christ. For it is written,
Enter into your secret chambers for a little time, to the day my wrath and fury pass away; and I will remember a favorable day, and will raise you up out of your graves.
Blessed are we, beloved, if we keep the commandments of God in the harmony of love; so that through love our sins may be forgiven us. For it is written,
Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not impute to him, and in whose mouth there is no guile.
This blessedness comes on those who have been chosen by God through Jesus Christ our Lord; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Let us therefore beg forgiveness for all those transgressions which we have committed through any suggestion of the adversary. And these who have been the leaders of mutiny and disagreement ought to have respect for the common confident expectation. For those who live in fear and love would rather that they themselves should be involved in suffering than their neighbors. And they prefer to bear blame themselves, rather than permit that the concord should suffer which has been well and piously handed down to us. For it is better that a man should acknowledge his transgressions than that he should harden his heart, as the hearts of those were hardened who stirred up rebellion against Moses the servant of God, and whose condemnation was made apparent to all. For they went down alive into Hades, and death swallowed them up. Pharaoh with his army and all the princes of Egypt, and the chariots with their riders, were sunk in the depths of the Red Sea, and perished, for no other reason than that their foolish hearts were hardened, after so many signs and wonders had been worked in the land of Egypt by Moses the servant of God.
The Lord, brothers, stands in need of nothing; and He desires nothing of any one except that confession be made to Him. For, says the elect David,
I will confess unto the Lord; and that will please Him more than a young bullock that has horns and hoofs. Let the poor see it, and be glad.
And again he says,
Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High. And call on me in the day of your trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. For the sacrifice of God is a broken spirit.
You understand, beloved, you understand well the sacred Scriptures, and you have looked very seriously into the revealed words of God. Call these things to your remembrance then. When Moses went up into the mount, and remained there, with fasting and humiliation, forty days and forty nights, the Lord said unto him,
Moses, Moses, go down quickly from here; for your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have committed iniquity. They have speedily departed from the way in which I commanded them to walk, and have made to themselves molten images.
And the Lord said unto him,
I have spoken to you once and again, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people: let me destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make you a great and wonderful nation, and one much more numerous than this. But Moses said, Far be it from You, Lord: pardon the sin of this people; else blot me also out of the book of the living.
O marvellous love! O insuperable perfection! The servant speaks freely to his Lord, and asks forgiveness for the people, or begs that he himself might perish along with them.
Who then among you is noble-minded? Who is compassionate? Who is full of love? Let him declare, “If on my account rebellion and disagreement and schisms have arisen, I will depart, I will go away wherever you desire, and I will do whatever the majority commands; only let the flock of Christ live on terms of peace with the Presbyters set over it.” He who acts thus shall procure for himself great glory in the Lord; and every place will welcome him. For
the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.
These things they who live a godly life never to be repented of, have both done and will always do.
To bring forward some examples from among the heathen: Many kings and princes, in times of pestilence, when they had been instructed by a pagan oracle, have given themselves up to die, in order that by their own blood they might deliver their fellow citizens from destruction. Many have gone forth from their own cities, so that rebellion might be brought to an end within them. We know many among ourselves who have given themselves up to chains, in order that they might ransom others. Many, too, have surrendered themselves to slavery, so that with the price they received for themselves, they might provide food for others. Many women also, being strengthened by the grace of God, have performed numerous manly exploits. The blessed Judith, when her city was besieged, asked permission of the elders to go forth into the camp of the strangers; and exposing herself to danger, she went out for the love which she bore for her country and people then being besieged; and the Lord delivered Holofernes into the hands of a woman. Esther also, being perfect in faith, exposed herself to no less danger, in order to deliver the twelve tribes of Israel from impending destruction. For with fasting and humiliation she entreated the everlasting God, who sees all things; and He, perceiving the humility of her spirit, delivered the people for whose sake she had confronted danger.
Let us then pray also for those who have fallen into any sin, that meekness and humility may be given to them, so that they may submit, not to Us, but to the will of God. For in this way they shall secure a fruitful and perfect remembrance from Us, with sympathy for them, both in Our prayers to God, and Our mention of them to the saints. Let us receive correction, beloved, on account of which no one should feel displeased. Those exhortations by which we admonish one another are both good in themselves, and highly profitable, for they tend to unite us to the will of God. For thus says the holy Word:
The Lord has severely chastened me, yet has not given me over to death. For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. The righteous (says it) shall chasten me in mercy, and reprove me; but let not the oil of sinners make fat my head.
And again he says,
Blessed is the man whom the Lord reproves, and reject not the warning of the Almighty. For He causes sorrow, and again restores to gladness; He wounds, and His hands make whole. He shall deliver you in six troubles, yes, in the seventh no evil shall touch you. In famine He shall rescue you from death, and in war He shall free you from the power of the sword. From the scourge of the tongue He will hide you, and you shall not fear when evil comes. You shall laugh at the unrighteous and the wicked, and shall not be afraid of the beasts of the field. For the wild beasts shall be at peace with you: then shall you know that your house shall be in peace, and the place of your dwelling shall not fail. You shall know also that your offspring shall be great, and your children like the grass of the field. And you shall come to the grave like ripened grain which is reaped in season, or like a heap of the threshing-floor gathered together at the proper time.
You see, beloved, that protection is afforded to those who are chastized by the Lord; for since God is good, He corrects us, that we may be admonished by His holy chastisement.
You therefore, who laid the foundation of this mutiny, submit yourselves to the Presbyters, and receive correction so as to repent, bending the knees of your hearts. Learn to be subject, laying aside the proud and arrogant self-confidence of your tongue. For it is better for you that you should occupy a humble but honorable place in the flock of Christ, than, being highly exalted, that you should be cast out from the confident expectation of His people. For thus speaks all-virtuous Wisdom:
Behold, I will bring forth to you the words of my Spirit, and I will teach you my speech. Since I called, and you did not hear; I presented my words, and you regarded not, but set at naught my counsels, and yielded not at my reproofs; therefore I too will laugh at your destruction; yes, I will rejoice when ruin comes upon you, and when sudden confusion overtakes you, when defeat presents itself like a tempest, or when tribulation and oppression fall upon you. For it shall happen, that when you call on me, I will not hear you; the wicked shall seek me, and they shall not find me. For they hated wisdom, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; nor would they listen to my counsels, but despised my reproofs. For this reason they shall eat the fruits of their own way, and they shall be filled with their own ungodliness. For, in punishment for the wrongs which they inflicted on babies, they shall be slain, and inquiry will be death to the ungodly; but he who hears me shall rest in confident expectation and be undisturbed by the fear of any evil.
Therefore, let us flee from the warning threats pronounced by Wisdom on the disobedient, and give submission to His all-holy and glorious name, that we may place our trust in the most hallowed name of His majesty. Accept Our counsel, and you shall be without regret. For, as God lives, and as the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost live—both the faith and confident expectation of the elect—he who in lowliness of mind, with instant gentleness and without regret, has observed the ordinances and appointments given by God—the same shall obtain a place and name among the number of those who are being saved through Jesus Christ, through whom is glory to Him for ever and ever. Amen.
If, however, any shall disobey the words spoken by Him through Us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and serious danger; but We shall be innocent of this sin, and, instant in prayer and supplication, shall desire that the Creator of all preserve unbroken the computed number of His elect in the whole world through His beloved Son Jesus Christ, through whom He called us from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge of the glory of His name:
Our confident expectation resting on Your name which is primal cause of every creature—having opened the eyes of Our heart to the knowledge of You, who alone rests highest among the highest, holy among the holy, who lays low the insolence of the haughty, who destroys the calculations of the heathen, who sets the low on high and brings low the exalted; who makes rich and makes poor, who kills and makes to live, the only Benefactor of spirits and God of all flesh, who beholds the depths, the eye-witness of human works, the help of those in danger, the Savior of those in despair, the Creator and Guardian of every spirit, who multiplies nations on earth, and from all made choice of those who love You through Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son, through whom You instructed, sanctify, honor Us. We would have You, Lord, to prove our help and succor. Those of us in affliction save, on the lowly take pity; the fallen raise; on those in need arise; the sick heal; the wandering ones of Your people turn back; fill the hungry; redeem those of us in chains; raise up those who are weak; comfort the faint-hearted; let all the nations know that You are God alone and Jesus Christ Your Son, and
we are Your people and the sheep of Your pasture.
You made to appear the enduring fabric of the world by the works of Your hand; You, Lord, created the earth on which we dwell—You, who are faithful in all generations, just in judgments, wonderful in strength and majesty, with wisdom creating and with understanding fixing the things which were made, who are good among those who are being saved and faithful among them whose trust is in You; O merciful and Compassionate One, forgive us our iniquities and offenses and transgressions and trespasses. Count not every sin of Your servants and handmaids, but You will purify us with the purification of Your truth; and direct our steps that we may walk in holiness of heart and do what is good and well-pleasing in Your sight and in the sight of our rulers. Yes, Lord, make Your face to shine on us for good in peace, that we may be shielded by Your mighty hand and delivered from every sin by Your uplifted arm, and deliver us from those who hate us wrongfully. Give concord and peace to us and all who dwell on the earth, even as You gave to our fathers, when they called on You in faith and truth, submissive as we are to Your almighty and all-excellent Name.
To our rulers and governors on the earth—to them You, Lord, gave the power of the kingdom by Your glorious and ineffable might, to the end that we may know the glory and honor given to them by You and be subject to them, in nothing resisting Your will; to them, Lord, give health, peace, concord, stability, so that they may exercise the authority given to them without offense. For You, O heavenly Lord and King eternal, give to the sons of men glory and honor and power over the things that are on the earth; do, Lord, direct their counsel according to that which is good and well-pleasing in Your sight, that, devoutly, in peace and meekness exercising the power given them by You, they may find You favorable. O You, who alone has power to do these things and more abundant good with us, we praise You through the High Priest and Guardian of our souls Jesus Christ, through whom be glory and majesty to You both now and from generation to generation and for evermore. Amen.
Concerning the things pertaining to our religious practice which are most profitable for a life of goodness to those who would pursue a godly and righteous course, We have written to you, men and brothers, at sufficient length. For concerning faith and repentance and true love and continence and soberness and patience, We have touched on every passage, putting you in mind that you ought in righteousness and truth and long-suffering to be well-pleasing to Almighty God with holiness, being of one mind—not remembering evil—in love and peace with instant gentleness, even as our fathers also forementioned found favor by the humility of their thoughts toward the Father and God and Creator and all mankind. And We put you in mind of these things with the greater pleasure, since We were well assured that We were writing to men who were faithful and of highest repute and had peered into the revealed words of the instruction of God.
It is right, therefore, to approach examples so good and so many, and bend the neck and fulfil the part of obedience, in order that, undisturbed by vain rebellion, we may attain to the goal set before us in truth wholly free from blame. Joy and gladness will you give Us, if you become obedient to the words written by Us and through the Holy Spirit root out the lawless wrath of your jealousy according to the intercession which We have made for peace and unity in this letter. We have sent men faithful and discreet, whose behavior from youth to old age has been blameless among us—the same shall be witnesses between you and Us. This We have done, that you may know that Our whole concern has been and is that you may be speedily at peace.
May God, who sees all things, and who is the Ruler of all spirits and the Lord of all flesh—who chose our Lord Jesus Christ and us through Him to be a peculiar people—grant to every soul that calls upon His glorious and holy name, faith, fear, peace, patience, long-suffering, self-control, purity, and sobriety, to the well-pleasing of His name, through our High Priest and Protector, Jesus Christ, by whom be to Him glory, and majesty, and power, and honor, both now and for evermore. Amen.
Speedily send back to Us in peace and with joy these Our Messengers to you: Claudius Ephebus and Valerius Bito, with Fortunatus; that they may the sooner announce to Us the peace and harmony We so earnestly desire and long for among you, and that We may the more quickly rejoice over the good order re-established among you.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, and with all everywhere who are the called of God through Him, by whom be to Him glory, honor, power, majesty, and eternal dominion, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen.


This letter of Clement to the Corinthians was publicly read for the common benefit in most of the assemblies. Many held it to be inspired sacred scripture worthy of being included in the collection of scriptures we now call the Bible.

About the same period, during the same reign of Domitian, Jude the Apostle wrote the following letter of warning addressed to all believers:


Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ: Mercy to you and peace and love be multiplied.
Beloved, while I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I was constrained to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For there are certain men who crept in secretly, even those who were long ago written about for this condemnation: ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into indecency, and denying our only Master, God, and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Now I desire to remind you, though you already know this, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. Angels who did not keep their first domain, but deserted their own dwelling place, he has kept in everlasting bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, having, in the same way as these, given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are shown as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same way, these also in their dreaming defile the flesh, despise authority, and slander celestial beings. But Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil and arguing about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him an abusive condemnation, but said,
“May the Lord rebuke you!
But these speak evil of whatever things they do not know. They are destroyed in these things that they understand naturally, like the creatures without reason. Woe to them! For they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in Korah’s rebellion. These are hidden rocky reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you, Shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever. About these also Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying,
“Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their works of ungodliness which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
These are murmurers and complainers, walking according to their lusts (and their mouth speaks proud things), showing respect of persons to gain advantage.
But you, beloved, remember the words which have been spoken before by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you that
“In the last time there will be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts.”
These are they who cause divisions, and are sensual, not having the Spirit. But you, beloved, keep building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. On some have compassion, making a distinction, and some save, snatching them out of the fire with fear, hating even the clothing stained by the flesh.
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory in great joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.


Reading time about one hour and thirty minutes.

This chapter is the sixteenth part of a sixteen-part summary of the intervening years between the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul under Nero and the writing of the New Testament works of the Epistle of Jude, the Book of Revelation and the Letters of John the Apostle. Sources are linked below.

Historians and Bible scholars disagree on the precise dates of the intervening years. But in general they do agree that the entire historical period extends from about A.D. 67 through 90.
The summary of the intervening years concludes with this chapter Sixty-two. The concluding chapters Sixty-two and Sixty-three of this Harmony of the Gospel contain the Book of Revelation, and the Letters of John.

Ecclesiastical History III, chapter 13–14
Twelve Caesars: Domitian 13
Ecclesiastical History III, chapters 15–18
1 Clement (to the Corinthians)

Jude

Note to the reader:
The text of this chapter is a redaction of the informative sources listed and linked below, rearranged, chronologically sequenced, collated, condensed, combined and adapted, while seeking to preserve much of their expressive language, and in some instances updating and improving both their translations and the written copy.

Compare
World English Bible text
Greek original text
Latin Vulgate text
NRSV text
Scofield Reference Bible (1917 Edition)
Conservative Bible text
multiple versions of any verse
multiple commentaries any passage
interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English
Bible maps (click initial letter of place name)
Bible Encyclopedias: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature (studylight.org)
Catholic Encyclopedia Catholic Online (catholic.org)
Hebrew Calendar Converter See exact equivalents of Gregorian Calendar dates.

—in Gregorian Calendar click the cursor in the day, month, or year fields, to highlight selection,
then use [Backspace ←] and [←] [→] right and left arrow keys in the day and year fields,
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Table of Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, in English translation, Joel Kalvesmaki 2013 (kalvesmaki.com)

List of 300 Septuagint Old Testament quotations in the New Testament, by Steve Rudd 2017 (bible.ca)

Table of LXX quotes and allusions in the New Testament


Church History (Eusebius): The Ecclesiastical History Of Eusebius Pamphilus: Bishop Of Caesarea, In Palestine (newadvent.org)

The Works of Flavius Josephus William Whiston, Translator, 1737 (sacred-texts.com)

Suetonius: Twelve Caesars: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by C. Suetonius Tranquilus; To which are added His Lives of the Grammarians, Rhetoricians, and Poets. The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D., Revised and corrected by T. Forester, Esq., A.M. (Gutenberg.org)

Tacitus: The Annals, Written 109 A.C.E. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb

Sextus Aurelius Victor: Epitome De Caesaribus (roman-emperors.org)

Eutropius: Breviarium - Eutropius's Abridgement of Roman History (tertullian.org)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome (penelope.uchicago.edu)

Early Christian Writings A.D. 30 through 380 (earlychristianwritings.com)
See Biblical Canon and Apocrypha.

The Twelve Caesars: Titus Flavius Domitianus
Domitian: Roman Emperor (britannica.com)
Domitian (roman-emperors.org)
Domitian, by Donald L. Wasson (ancient.eu)
Domitian (livius.org)
Domitian (studylight.org)
Domitian Catholic Encyclopedia online (catholic.org)
Domitian (en.wikipedia.org)
Domitian (newadvent.org)

See Conservapedia article Domitian

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXVII (penelope.uchicago.edu)

Eccesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, Book III, chapters 13 through 18
Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org)

Chapter 13 Anencletus, the second Bishop of Rome
Chapter 14 Avilus, the second Bishop of Alexandria
Chapter 15 Clement, the third Bishop of Rome
Chapter 16 The Epistle of Clement
Chapter 17 The Persecution of the Christians under Domitian
Chapter 18 Of John the Apostle, and the Revelation

1 Clement J. B. Lightfoot translation (earlychristianwritings.com)

Josephus: The Essential Writings A Condensation of Jewish Antiquities and The Jewish War, Translated and Edited by Paul L. Maier, © 1988, Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel, Inc. P.O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501
Eusebius—The Church History: A New Translation with Commentary, Copyright © 1999 by Paul Maier, Published by Kregel Publications, a division of Kregel Inc., P.O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501
Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars: Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, The Twelve Caesars, Translated by Robert Graves, Revised with an Introduction and Notes by J. B. Rives, Penguin Classics, published by the Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014 USA, copyright 1957 by Robert Graves, Introduction, editorial matter and revisions to the translation, copyright James Rives 2007 all rights reserved. The moral right of the editor has been asserted.


"Antipas of Pergamum was roasted to death in a brazen or copper bull during the persecutions of Emperor Domitian"

"The same year, in A.D. 92. the Sarmatians crossed the Danube and attacked the Roman frontier in an act of war"

Sarmatia (Σαρματία). The eastern part of Poland and southern part of Russia in Europe, from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga, bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian seas as well as the Caucasus to the south. Their women participated in warfare and were famed for their strength and ferocity.
See the following articles:

"Domitian fought the combined forces of the Suebi and the Sarmatians with some measure of success in the Second Pannonian War."

See (again) Rebellion and Pannonia (unrv.com)
See also (again) Map of the Roman Empire - Pannonia (bible-history.com)

"Domitian was back in Rome, not to accept a full triumph but the lesser ovatio"

a cheering ovation, less magnificent than a triumph.
See Triumph and Ovation - Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (riseandfalloftheromanempire.weebly.com)

"In the twelfth year of this same reign, in A.D. 93, after Anencletus had been Episcopos of Rome twelve years"

The chronology here is according to Eusebius, Book III, Chapter 15, calculated from the accession of Domitian as emperor, A.D. 81 (+12 = 93). Other sources, cited in the Conservapedia article Pope Anacletus and provided here below, offer different and uncertain lengths of the Episcopate of Anacletus.
Pope St. Anacletus - Catholic Encyclopedia (newadvent.org)
Pope Anacletus - New World Encyclopedia (newworldencyclopedia.org)
St. Anacletus | pope - Britannica (britannica.com)
Pope Saint Cletus (ucatholic.com)
Pope Cletus, Saint - Encyclopedia (catholic.com)

"The Roman Church continued loyal to the empire, and sent up its prayers to God that He would direct the rulers and magistrates in the exercise of the power committed to their hands."

Compare: Clement to the Corinthians, chapter 61 (wikisource.org);
compare Romans 13:1 and 1 Peter 2:13.

I Clement The First Epistle of Clement of Rome.

I CLEMENT has been dated c. 80, others range the date of authorship at 75-110. It is evident from the text that Clement is writing from Rome, and that he addresses the Corinthian church, in the name of the church of Rome, with firm magisterial authority, and sound Christian doctrine, firmly rooted in sacred scripture as well as apostolic tradition.
Eusebius (EH III, 15) says Clement became Bishop of Rome in the 12th year of the reign of Domitian = September A.D. 81/September A.D. 82 + 12 years = A.D. 93/94 (counting A.D. 81/82 as the first year of Domitian and 82/83 as the second year).
Christian conservatives take Eusebius as a reliable historian, who verified his sources, and therefore, the year 93-94, based on the historically verified dates of the reign of Domitian, is conservatively viewed as the earliest year that First Clement could have been written.
References to the worship in the Temple at Jerusalem expressed in the present tense do not necessarily prove that the epistle was written before A.D. 70, when the Temple was still standing, and the priests of Aaron and the Levites were performing their ministries of sacrifice according to the law of Moses. Because this epistle is attributed to Clement as the Bishop of Rome and the author of it, it is traditionally dated since the second century to the A.D. nineties, long after the Temple was destroyed. This traditional assumption makes the epistolary references to the dignity of the Temple ministers merely citations of examples from the past as illustrations for the present and the future, as we would say, using the present tense in referring to the past,
—"Listen to what Jesus is saying to the Pharisees",
—or,
—"Just look at how the Assyrians and Babylonians treat their captives in their campaigns of conquest,"
—and even now, in Old Testament Bible Study classes,
—"Observe how the Priests and Levites perform the service of the tabernacle and the temple in obedience to Moses."
See the following articles regarding the dating of 1 Clement:

"the sudden, and successive, calamitous events which have happened"

1 Clement 1:1
Traditionally read as referring to the most recent persecution of Roman Christians under the emperor Domitian.

"...events which have happened to Ourselves, We feel that We have been rather tardy in turning Our attention to the points about which you consulted Us..."

1 Clement 1:1ff and throughout.
The majestic plural, pluralis majestaticus, is the use of a plural pronoun to refer to a single person holding a high office, such as a sovereign (the "royal we") or a chief religious leader. It is a matter of some dispute whether this phrase (and others similar in grammar throughout the extant text) should read as, "events which have happened to us"..." (compare the different translations accessible at Early Christian Writings: First Clement—some of them read "us", but others read "ourselves"). See the following sources:
The semantic context in the text of 1 Clement is used here in this Harmony of the Gospel (Conservative Version) to determine capitalization of the first person plural pronoun, the "majestic We".
Addressing the Corinthians with authority, as the Episcopos of the church at Rome, St. Clement does not use the personal pronoun forms of "myself", "I", "me", "mine".
Compare Ezra 4:17-18.
Note the difference in usage between
2 Corinthians 10 and 1 Thessalonians 2:5–3:11 ("wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul"—KJV).
See Royal we (thefreedictionary.com)
See also (and this is the article's single title):
"Plural of Majesty", "pluralis majestaticus", "singular of intensity", the "Royal we". God is one in unity, but three persons: "Let US make man in OUR image". (Genesis 1:26) (bible.ca)

"walked in the commandments of God, obedient to those who had the rule over you"

Compare 1 John 2:3-6; 5:2-3; Hebrews 13:17.

"You never resented any act of kindness, being ready for every good work."

The First Epistle of Clement reproaches the Corinthian church for permitting disobedience to their Presbyters, and, claiming divine authority from God, commands both obedience to authority and the requirement of doing good works as necessary for pleasing God, obtaining salvation, and avoiding condemnation to hell—1 Clement 59:1 "If, however, any shall disobey the words spoken by Him through Us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and serious danger." (See 2 Corinthians 5:20)
See Bible commentaries on
Hebrews 13:17
Ephesians 2:10
See also articles
Sola fide
Corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

"And then was fulfilled that which is written"

Τhirty-nine biblical citations in 1 Clement clearly come from the Septuagint; nine citations derived from the Septuagint, with moderate differences from the received text; five quotations are from non-Septuagintal versions of the Jewish scriptures; and twelve “composite citations” combining biblical texts. Forty-eight Septuagint, seventeen other sources.
See the following:

"Through envy, those women, the Danaids and Dircæ, being persecuted, after they had suffered terrible and unspeakable torments..."

1 Clement 6:2.
The deaths of Christian women persecuted for their faith were often arranged and presented as dramatic recreations (silvae) of pagan myths in the Roman arena, as examples of the deaths of evil women condemned by the gods.
Forty-nine of the fifty daughters of Danaus, the Danaides, who were all forced to be married to fifty husbands in a single mass ceremony, killed their husbands with daggers and were subsequently given as prizes to victors in public contests; and afterward they were punished in Hades by being forced eternally without rest to draw water in leaking jars to fill to the top a huge basin with a hole in the bottom, to be set free.
The Dircae (plural spelling) were killed like the woman Dirke, or Dirce, who in revenge for her cruelty and impiety was tied to a wild bull and torn limb from limb.
Clement in his epistle to the Corinthians is reminding them of how Christian women were persecuted and martyred in the arena.
See the following:

"There is a certain bird which is called a phœnix..."

1 Clement 25:1-5
Compare Job 29:18b "...I shall multiply my days as the phoenix". (JPS Tanakh 1917 translation).
Most English translations—"...as the sand"
This immediately raises the question, "How does sand multiply its days?"
See the following links:
Job chapter 29 JPS Tanakh 1917 "Then I said: ‘I shall die with my nest, / And I shall multiply my days as the phoenix; … ’ "
Job 29:18 interlinear note: "my nest" (bird parallel)—7064 [e] qin·nî קִנִּ֣י my nest
Job 29:18 parallel English translations
Job 29:18 multiple translations
Job 29:18 multiple commentaries
—"like the Phœnix." The word “nest” in the first clause favors this translation.
Job 29:18 "sand"...
Strong's number 2344 כַוֹל: in this passage the Hebrew interpreters understand the phœnix to be spoken of
see Strong's number 2342: "whirling", "turn again", as the Phœnix returns again.
“Then I said: I shall die with my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the chol וְ֝כַח֗וֹל.” (Job 29:18).
Septuagint Greek text of Job 29
verse 18 εἶπα δέ ἡ ἡλικία μου γηράσει ὥσπερ στέλεχος φοίνικος πολὺν χρόνον βιώσω
φοίνικος phoinikos = Phoenix
See English-Greek text of Job 29 (ellopos.net)
See sources and articles:
Pliny, Natural History - in Thirty-seven Books, Book X, Chapter II, pages 186-188 (archive.org) Naturalist discussion of the phœnix as a real bird by Pliny the Elder, first century.
The Non-Appearance of the Phoenix at Tacitus Annals 6:28, by Elizabeth Keitel (muse.jhu.edu)
Tacitus: The Annals Book VI, 28 Written 109 A.C.E. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribbscroll down to 40th and 41st paragraphs.
The History of Herodotus, By Herodotus (440 B.C.E. Before the Christian Era) Book II Euterpe 76 (classics.mit.edu)scroll down to 76th paragraph.
The Phoenix and the Early Church, Daniel Tompsett (vision.org)
The Phoenix in the Judeo-Christian Tradition, By Dr. Taylor Marshall (taylormarshall.com)
The Septuagint translation of the Jewish scriptures from Hebrew into Greek, by profoundly skilled Greek-speaking rabbis, according to tradition, renders the Hebrew word וכחול ū·ḵə·ḥō·wl as equivalent to the Greek word φοίνικος phoinikos "Phoenix".
"We attach great importance to the reading [text] of the Septuagint, because it was translated 280 years before Christ, by men who had every facility for ascertaining the real meaning of the Hebrew text, and their work was honoured by the cordial approbation of the Sanhedrim of Alexandria, at a time when Hebrew learning was at its highest state of perfection in that city."
—John Grigg Hewlett, D.D. Bible difficulties explained (1860), p. 162 –book in the public domain
A purported sighting of the Phœnix is estimated to have taken place around A.D. 34 during the reign of Tiberius, when he was on the Isle of Capri, the same year he bestowed an honorary quaestorship on his ward Gaius Caligula. The sighting was recorded by Tacitus the Roman historian and Pliny the Elder as having occurred in Egypt the same year.
"During the consulship of Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius, the bird called the phoenix, after a long succession of ages, appeared in Egypt and furnished the most learned men of that country and of Greece with abundant matter for the discussion of the marvellous phenomenon. It is my wish to make known all on which they agree with several things, questionable enough indeed, but not too absurd to be noticed.

"That it is a creature sacred to the sun, differing from all other birds in its beak and in the tints of its plumage, is held unanimously by those who have described its nature. As to the number of years it lives, there are various accounts. The general tradition says five hundred years. Some maintain that it is seen at intervals of fourteen hundred and sixty-one years, and that the former birds flew into the city called Heliopolis successively in the reigns of Sesostris, Amasis, and Ptolemy, the third king of the Macedonian dynasty, with a multitude of companion birds marvelling at the novelty of the appearance. But all antiquity is of course obscure. From Ptolemy to Tiberius was a period of less than five hundred years. Consequently some have supposed that this was a spurious phoenix, not from the regions of Arabia, and with none of the instincts which ancient tradition has attributed to the bird. For when the number of years is completed and death is near, the phoenix, it is said, builds a nest in the land of its birth and infuses into it a germ of life from which an offspring arises, whose first care, when fledged, is to bury its father. This is not rashly done, but taking up a load of myrrh and having tried its strength by a long flight, as soon as it is equal to the burden and to the journey, it carries its father's body, bears it to the altar of the Sun, and leaves it to the flames. All this is full of doubt and legendary exaggeration. Still, there is no question that the bird is occasionally seen in Egypt."Tacitus, The Annals 6:28boldface emphasis added.

"Boldness, and arrogance, and audacity belong to those who are accursed of God"

Compare the following scriptures:
During the Protestant Reformation period Martin Luther's famously harsh and colorful denunciations of the Pope and the Catholic clergy in language that was unquestionably "bold, arrogant, and audacious" were taken by those Catholic bishops, priests, clergy and theologians who condemned his teachings against Catholic doctrine as evidence that he and those who agreed with him in similar language were most certainly not guided by the Holy Spirit, and as proof, firmly based on scripture (such as the scripture texts above in this note), that he and they "are accursed of God". Even now, non-Catholics who condemn both Catholicism and Lutheranism point to Luther's language as proof that he was in rebellion against God and the authority of the Bible itself.
See the following:

"Not in every place, brethren, are the daily sacrifices offered, or the peace-offerings, or the sin-offerings and the trespass-offerings, but in Jerusalem only..."

1 Clement 41:2-3
The author is directly referencing the Old Testament scriptures in the Book of Leviticus, chapter 22, and the Book of Deuteronomy, chapters 12 and 27.
In the same way, the Epistle to the Hebrews at the time of the apostles, when the temple in Jerusalem was still standing, speaks in the present tense of the tabernacle, saying that the priests of the Old Covenant, "which serve the tabernacle", have no right to eat from the Christian altar, at a time when the tabernacle no longer existed (Hebrews 13:10). A strictly literalist interpretation of the Letter to the Hebrews demonstrates from the plain and simple meaning of the words of scripture that Hebrews must have been written when the tabernacle still stood—clearly an absurdly impossible anachronism. See Proof text.
"Not in every place, brethren, are the daily sacrifices offered, or the peace-offerings, or the sin-offerings and the trespass-offerings, but in Jerusalem only. And even there they are not offered in any place, but only at the altar before the temple, that which is offered being first carefully examined by the high priest and the ministers already mentioned. Those, therefore, who do anything beyond that which is agreeable to His will, are punished with death."
See Deuteronomy 12:8-28; 27:26
and Leviticus 22:17-25.
The context within the epistle demonstrates that this reference to the practice prescribed through Moses is an example expressing the unity of purpose and dedicated obedience of service commanded by God according to His divine will. Unity, not division. They are not to do as they please or see fit according to their own understanding, but humbly submit with all respect to those appointed as shepherds over them by the heads of the churches as having legitimate authority, and not whomsoever they themselves on their own authority would prefer. The church is not a democracy. The law of Moses presents only one way of doing things: "Those, therefore, who do anything beyond that which is agreeable to His will, are punished with death." He also adds further on what has already been cited here above: "If, however, any shall disobey the words spoken by Him through Us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and serious danger."
Compare Numbers 16 and 17, and Jude 16-19
Compare Matthew 18:15-18 and Titus 3:10-11, also 1 John 2:19.
Orthodox and Catholic reading of 1 Clement 40–41 without hesitation implicitly applies Old Testament types directly and immediately to the Ministers of the Christian mysteries: to the Bishop as representative high priest of the celebration In persona Christi, to the Presbyters as Priests, to the Deacons as Levites, and to the laity as the laymen of the Assembly and members of the congregation of the Christian community of the Lord. Such a reading is not understood as a direct reference to the Old Testament law of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness and the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem only but as applying directly to the Christian worship of the Heavenly New Jerusalem of the Letter to the Hebrews 12:22-24 which is the Church, God's Dwelling among men. Thus Clement is referring directly to the law of the disciplined order of worship of the Church that they themselves can see by way of directly parallel analogy, not the discipline of the Temple destroyed by the Jews and the Romans in the war of A.D. 70 so many years before. He is speaking of present Church order. The "times and seasons" (40:2) are thus the already established, prescribed celebrations of the seasons of the feasts and solemnities of the Church year, the "high priest" as the Bishop, the "priests" as the Presbyters, the "levites" as the Deacons, the "laymen" as members of the assembly of the congregation of Christian believers as the community of the Lord under the authority of the chief pastors (40:5), the "inspected offerings" as the worshipers themselves (Romans 12:1; 1 Corinthians 11:28-31) and the one place in which the only true worship of sacrifice is offered to God is "in Jerusalem only", "mount Sion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem", the Church come down out of heaven, the New Jerusalem, as a bride adorned for her husband (41:2; Hebrews 12:22-24; James 1:17; Revelation 21:1-3), in other words, "in the catholic and orthodox Church only". Their rejection of the authority of their pastors and presbyters is a rejection of the pattern of the order of godly worship according to the law of proper love established by God in Jesus Christ alone as found only in his Church through respect for their duly appointed Presbyters as Shepherds. This language in 1 Clement 40–41 is already early found in the Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch, most explicitly the letter to the Ephesians. Ignatius clearly favors a situation wherein the bishop holds the highest earthly rank of authority in the community ("high priest"), followed by the presbyters or deacons, and then lastly, the congregation members. St. Paul himself said, "We are the Israel of God" (Galatians 6:16; Hebrews 13:10; Philippians 3:3; see 1 Peter 2:5).

"And this rumor has reached not only Us, but also those who are unconnected with Us; so that, through your infatuation, the name of the Lord is blasphemed"

1 Clement 47:7
The Corinthians were causing a scandal. Scandals of rejection of authority have frequently occurred in Christian history.
In the eleventh century, controversy over authority led to the Great Schism of 1054.
In the sixteenth century, a multitude of ecclesiastical and political scandals caused by members of the Catholic Church, who abused the authority of their offices as leaders of the Church and heads of governments, sparked resentments which helped promote the scandal of the Protestant Reformation.
From the sixteenth century to the present day, controversies over doctrine and authority have divided Protestantism into more than 42,000 denominations, causing further scandal in the eyes of Christians and the world.
In the twentieth century, racial, ethnic, political, sexual, monetary and theological scandals of infighting within the major and minor denominations of Christianity and the rise of separatist cults severely damaged the name of Christian, giving atheists, liberals, public media and militant Islamic extremists abundant pretext to blaspheme the name of Christ.

"Korah’s rebellion"

Jude 11. A reference to Numbers 16:1-35.
Jude is here referring to the rebellion in which Korah (KJV "Core"), and Dathan and Abiram "took men; and they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men; and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, 'You have gone too far! For all the congregation are holy, every one of them; why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?' "
See commentaries on Jude 11, Numbers 16:3.
The Protestant Reformation has been characterized by its critics as an example of Korah's rebellion, especially those Reformation theologians who emphasize the common priesthood of all Christian believers in Christ ("all the congregation are holy, every one of them") and reject all forms of ecclesiastical hierarchy ("why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?"), rejecting the existing established hierarchical authority of popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, deacons, all forms of ordained clergy.
Compare Fallacy of analogy.
The office of the Papacy has been characterized by its critics as an example of what Paul warned against:
"the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God."
(See commentaries on 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4
See Polemic, Misrepresentation and Libel.
There is no documented historical evidence that any Pope ever proclaimed himself to be God
("Have Popes Really Claimed to be God?" (geoffhorton.com).
The Roman Caesars did proclaim themselves to be God: Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian
(The Roman Cult of Emperor Worship (readingacts.com).
See List of people who have been considered deities (wikipedia.org) (the pope is not listed, and no individual pope is listed)
See also the following articles:

"keep building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life."

Jude 20-21
This admonition to "keep" and persevere and look for mercy is absolutely unnecessary if salvation once given can never be lost or forfeited. And those to whom salvation is never given, from whom God withholds the grace of Limited Atonement, allowing them to remain "children of wrath", cannot expect mercy to come to them from Jesus Christ. Both of these verses of Jude within the whole of the context of the Bible contradict the Calvinist doctrines of Total Depravity and Eternal Security (Assurance).

"On some have compassion, making a distinction, and some save, snatching them out of the fire"

Jude 20-21
RSVCE—"And convince some, who doubt; save some, by snatching them out of the fire"
While Hebrews 6:4-6 teaches that "it is impossible...to renew them again unto repentance", the Epistle of James teaches "Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death".
There is no particular limitation here. Those who fall away (Hebrews 6:6) a "brother" can save, by convincing the fallen of the error of their way and converting them, and bringing them back.
See RSVCE version of James 5:19-20—"if any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death".
Against Calvinism is the doctrine of Arminianism that those who have been saved can fall away and lose their salvation. And many believe that those who do fall away can never be restored again unto repentance. That is true of those who, after having been saved, afterward turn away from Jesus as the Son of God and reject salvation through the blood of Christ and do not repent of their apostasy before they die, a "sin unto death" (1 John 5:16). They are most certainly in error, and in immediate danger of falling into the fire of hell. As long as they continue in disbelief they cannot be renewed unto repentance; they will not seek forgiveness from one they reject and despise. According to James, (by the grace of God who is not willing that any should perish) if someone convinces them of their error, they can be converted, and snatched from the fire, and "brought back" from the error of their way, and be restored again unto repentance through faith again in the saving power and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. See 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." And 1 John 5:16 "If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it."
Scripture cannot be broken, and God cannot lie. While there is life there is still hope of bringing back those who have fallen away. The Prodigal Son "who was lost" remembered, repented and returned again, and he was received. Luke 15:11-32.

"even the clothing stained by the flesh"

Jude 23.
"...clothing stained...", that is, stained with semen and perhaps blood as well.
This is socially, morally and spiritually disgusting.
The pagan Roman biographer Suetonius relates in an evident tone of disgust that Nero frequently emerged from his litter with his clothes disordered and stained by incestuous relations with Agrippina (Twelve Caesars, Nero 28). See Fornication and Adultery.
Compare Leviticus 15; Leviticus 18; 20:10-21.
See commentaries on
Jude 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 18, 19, 23
also commentaries on
Revelation 2:6, 14, 15, 20, 24
See again the following articles:
The Catholic Church claims that no one can be saved by good works.
Compare
Matthew 7:15-27
Romans chapter 6
1 John 3:4-18
James 1:16–2:26
John 15:1-10
See also
commentaries on Ezekiel 18:24
commentaries on Matthew 7:21
commentaries on Matthew 12:33
commentaries on Matthew 25:29
commentaries on Revelation 22:12
See Corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

"to him who is able to keep you from stumbling"

Jude 24
The World English Bible WEB reads "able to keep them from stumbling"—and yet another version reads "us".
See multiple versions of Jude 24.
Compare interlinear text of Jude 24.
The WEB clearly interprets the first portion of this passage as referring implicitly to those on whom we should have mercy and save with fear, sinners whom God is able to preserve from stumbling, or what some call "backsliding" (verse 23). The majority of interpreting translators read this part as a general reassurance of consolation to all believers in Christ. The doctrine of Assurance takes this as a supporting text for the infallible, unconditional salvation of the elect who have been chosen by God from all eternity to dwell with him in heaven, while the doctrine of free will in Christ interprets it to mean that with the Christian's submissive, and willing, cooperating correspondence with God's grace, as the condition of their continuing to receive the free gift of unmerited salvation, God is able to keep Christians from permanently falling away into sin and apostasy.
1 John 1:8-9 "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (KJV).
James 5:16 "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (KJV).
If the elect are infallibly made eternally free of sin by the Irresistible Grace of God, being made eternally righteous, then having been once and for all saved, and having no will to sin, there is now no sin to be cleansed, and no need to confess and be cleansed from all unrighteousness: they cannot sin; there is no condemnation; they can say they have no sin.
If those who are not among the elect eternally have sin, and are by nature "vessels made for destruction", being by nature eternally unrighteous, having no will to come to God and do good, it is pointless for them to confess their sins to be cleansed from all unrighteousness, and there is no cleansing from unrighteousness: they love darkness rather than light; hating the good; they cannot cease from sin.
It is impossible to remove from the eternally pure what is not there, a state of unrighteousness that cannot exist in them, and it is impossible to cleanse from the eternally impure a state of unrighteousness that is eternally foul, that can never be removed from them, or rather will never be removed. The decree of God is irrevocable.
See Calvinism and Arminianism.

[The events of A.D. 90 through 93 are not included in the Conservative Bible New Testament.]

[The Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (1 Clement) is not included in the Conservative Bible because it is not canonical scripture.]


Compare the Conservative Bible text (conservapedia.com):

(From:) Jude, the slave of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To: all those who are beloved by God the Father, and held in Jesus Christ, and called Christians: May mercy, and peace, and love be spread to you.

Beloved, when I wrote to you with all haste about our common salvation, I needed to write to you, to exhort you to sincerely maintain the faith as it was originally delivered to the saints. For there are certain men, who have crept in unnoticed, who have already been written up for condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into sensuality, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

So I will remind you of what you already know, of how the Lord, once He saved the people out of the land of Egypt, then destroyed those who did not believe in Him. And all those former Messengers of God who did not remain in their proper place, but left it, He shackled forever in darkness until Judgment Day. Furthermore, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them whose people also gave themselves over to sensuality, and homosexuality and bestiality, were made examples of, and suffered the vengeance of eternal fire.

And despite all that, these dreamers on the one hand defile the flesh, and on the other hand treat powerful spirit beings as if they were nothing, and insult heavenly beings. Even Michael, the Chief Messenger of God, when arguing with the Devil in a dispute over the body of Moses, did not accuse the Devil himself, but instead said, "The Lord rebukes you." But on the one hand these people insult things that they do not understand, and on the other hand with what they do understand, in their wild-animal nature, they destroy themselves. They shall perish! For they have followed the example of Cain, greedily imitated the error of Balaam, and self-destructed the way Korah the Mutineer did.

These people are threats to you in your love-feasts, when they dine with you without reverence, feeding themselves. They are like rainless clouds carried around by the winds; trees with withered fruit, dead twice over and uprooted, raging sea waves foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom the gloom of darkness is forever reserved.

Even Enoch, seventh in line of descent from Adam, prophesied about people like this. He said, "Look! The Lord is coming with huge numbers of His holy ones, to put everyone on trial, and to convict every living person among them of their ungodly works that they did in an ungodly manner, and of all their harsh speeches that ungodly sinners have spoken against Him."

These are people who like to grumble and blame others and walk after their own lusts. They speak boastful words to shock people for their own advantage.

But you, beloved, remember the words that were spoken before by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They told you, didn't they, that "There will be mockers in the last times, who would walk after their own ungodly lusts. These are the divisive and non-spiritual ones, taking no guidance from the Divine Guide."

But you, beloved, while you're building yourselves up on your most holy faith, and praying for guidance from the Divine Guide, keep yourselves in the love of God, and look for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that will carry you into eternal life.

Be merciful with some people in a discerning manner. Save other people as if you're snatching them out of the fire. And be merciful with still others with caution, and don't even touch the cloak that is spotted by the flesh.

Now let Him Who can keep you from falling, and can present you faultless before the presence of His glory with great joy, Our only God and Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, take all glory, majesty, power and authority, now and forever. Amen.

Sixty-two

Chapter 62 Historical texts
Bible texts

Domitian’s cruelties were not only excessive, but subtle and unexpected.

Having given orders that a collector of his rents be crucified, he then sent for him to come into his bed-chamber, made him sit down on the bed by him, and sent him away well pleased, and, so far as could be inferred from his treatment, in a state of perfect security, having condescended to give him the favor of a plate of meat from his own table; and the very next day he crucified him.

When he was on the point of condemning to death Aretinus Clemens, a man of consular rank, a former consul, and one of his Friends and emissaries, he retained him about his person in the same or greater favor than ever, being more than usually gracious to him; and at last, as they were riding together in the same litter, on seeing the man who had informed against him, he said, “Are you willing that we should hear this base slave of a scoundrel tomorrow?”; and afterward he executed the death sentence.

Contemptuously abusing the patience of men, he never pronounced a severe sentence without prefacing it with words which gave expectations of mercy; so that, at last, there was not a more certain token of a fatally dreadful conclusion, than a mild commencement of the proceedings against the accused.

He brought before the Senate some influential persons accused of treason, declaring that he should prove that day how dear he was to the Senate; and he so influenced them, that they condemned the accused to be punished according to the ancient usage. Then, as if alarmed at the extreme severity of their punishment, to lessen the odiousness of the proceeding, he interposed in these very words (for it is not irrelevant to the point of this narrative to give them precisely as they were delivered):

“Permit me, Conscript Fathers, to so far presume on your affection for me, however extraordinary the request may seem, as to grant these condemned criminals the favor of dying in the manner they choose. For by so doing, you will spare your own eyes the sight, and the world will understand that I interceded with the Senate on their behalf.”

He put to death a student of Paris, the pantomime actor, though still a minor, and sick at the time, only because, both in person and in the practice of his art, he resembled his master, whom Domitian had suspected of committing adultery with his wife Domitia; as he did likewise Hermogenes of Tarsus for including some indirect reflections about him in his History, besides crucifying the scribes who had copied the work.

When he happened to overhear a Lanista, the master of a band of gladiators, saying that a Thracian was a match for a Murmillo, but not so for the exhibitor of the games, he ordered him to be dragged from the benches into the arena, and exposed to the dogs, with this label tagged onto him, “A Parmularian guilty of talking impiously.”

He put to death many senators, and among them several men of consular rank. Among their number were, Civica Cerealis, when he was proconsul in Africa, Salvidienus Orfitus, and Acilius Glabrio in exile, under the pretence of their planning to revolt against him. The rest he punished on very trivial pretexts; such as Aelius Lamia for some jocular expressions, which were of old date, and perfectly harmless; because, after Domitian had taken his wife from him, on commending his voice, Aelius joked in reply, “Alas! I hold my tongue. I am in training.” (For Roman pagans at the time commonly believed that sexual activity is detrimental to the strength of the voice.) And when Titus immediately advised Aelius to take another wife, he answered him this way: “What! have you plans to marry also?” And for this past witticism he was now punished. Salvius Cocceianus was condemned to death for celebrating the birthday of his uncle Otho, the emperor; Metius Pomposianus also, because he was commonly reported to have a horoscope predicting imperial dignity, and to carry about with him a map of the world on vellum, with extracts of the speeches of kings and generals from the historical writings of Livy, and for giving his slaves the names of Mago and Hannibal, the Carthaginian generals; Sallustius Lucullus too, his lieutenant in Britain, for permitting some lances of new design to be called “Lucullean”, as already mentioned; and Junius Rusticus, for publishing a treatise in praise of Paetus Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus, and calling them both “most upright men.” And with this last occasion alone as a pretext, he likewise banished all the philosophers from the city and Italy. He showed himself the tool of Satan, and demanded all men everywhere call him Lord and God.

Meanwhile, Menander, a magician who succeeded Simon Magus after his death, in his own conduct showed himself to be another instrument of diabolical power, no less than the former deceiver. He also was a Samaritan and, having made no less progress in his pretensions than Simon himself, he carried his sorceries on to no less an extreme than his master had done, and at the same time reveled in still more arrogant sorceries than he; saying that he himself is the Savior, who had been sent down from invisible worlds of the æons for the salvation of men; and also Teaching that no one could gain the overwhelming mastery over the heaven-forming angels themselves, unless he had first been initiated into and gone through the discipline of magic imparted by him, and had received a baptism conferred for that purpose from him; from which those who were deemed worthy would partake of perpetual immortality even in this present life, and would never more be subject to bodily death, but would remain here unchanged, and, without growing old, become in fact immortal. This account of their conceits can be easily confirmed from the works of Irenæus.

And Justin, in the same place in his narrative in which he mentions Simon Magus, also gives an account of this man, in the following words:

“But we know that a certain Menander, who was a Samaritan, from the village of Capparattea, becoming a disciple of Simon, and being stimulated and driven by the demons, that he also came to Antioch and deceived many by his magical arts. And he persuaded those who followed him that they would never die. And of these even now there are still some who profess this.”

And it was indeed a diabolical strategy: to manifest so much zeal in defaming the great mystery of godliness by magic arts by means of such imposters, who assumed the name of Christian, and by these means to strive to tear asunder and demolish the doctrines of the Christian Assembly concerning the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the dead. But they who have called these men their saviors have fallen away from the stability of solid expectation, confident expectation found only in Jesus Christ the Son of the living God and Father.

However, the spirit of wickedness, the evil demon, being unable to shake certain others from their loving allegiance to the Christ of God, the Anointed of God, yet found them susceptible to his influential impressions in different respects, and so brought them over to his own purposes. The ancients quite properly call these men Ebionites, “poor ones”, because they cherish poor and mean opinions concerning Christ, considering him a plain and common man, who was justified only because of his advances in superior virtue, and who was only the fruit born of Mary by natural generation from sexual intercourse with a man. In their opinion the observance of the ceremonial law of Moses is absolutely necessary, seemingly on the ground that they cannot be saved by faith in Christ alone joined together with a virtuous way of life corresponding to his.

There were others, however, besides them, who have the same name of Ebionite, but avoid the absurdity of the opinions maintained by the first; not denying that the Lord was born of a virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit, yet likewise also refusing to acknowledge his pre-incarnate existence, even though he was God, the Word, and Wisdom, and also turning aside into the same impiety as the former in displaying great zeal for observing strictly the ritual worship service of the law of Moses.

These men, moreover, think that all of the epistles of the Apostle Paul, whom they call an apostate from the law of Moses, ought to be rejected, using only the writing called The Gospel According to the Hebrews and deeming the others, written by Matthew and Mark and Luke, as having very little value.

They observe the Sabbath and the rest of the discipline of the Jews, just like them, but at the same time, they celebrate the Lord’s days, very much like us, as a memorial of his resurrection.

For these reasons, in consequence of such a course of ignorant behavior, they received their descriptive title, the name of Ebionites, which signifies the poverty of their understanding. For according to Justin and the others who have written about them this is what the Hebrews call a poor man. Moreover, no copy of The Gospel of the Hebrews now exists among men, it having been entirely lost save for a few quotations from its text, demonstrating that it was no part of the eternal Gospel of the Lord inspired and revealed through Jesus Christ by the breath of the Holy Spirit of God and approved by his Apostles as truth.

About this same time Cerinthus also appeared, the author of another heresy called by his name, Cerinthianism. By means of pretended revelations of marvelous things which he falsely claims were shown him by angels, he asserts that after the resurrection there will be set up an earthly kingdom of Christ, and that the flesh dwelling in Jerusalem, that is, men, will again be subject to desires and pleasures. And as he himself was a voluptuary devoted to bodily pleasures and altogether sensual, he proposed that the kingdom of the Lord would consist of those things to which he was addicted, to gratify his appetite for delicious delicacies and sexual passion, in eating and drinking and marrying, or, under the cover of things by which he supposed these sensual delights might more decently be expressed, indulging his appetites with more social grace, as in festivals and sacrifices and the slaying of sacrificial animal victims from which the worshiper partakes, and celebrations of marriage feasts; and he drew many to his corrupt doctrines in opposition to the truth of God.

But Irenæus, in the first book of his work Against Heresies, adds more abominable false doctrines from the same man, deep things kept more secret; and in the third book relates a story which deserves to be recorded, handed down and received by tradition, on the authority of Polycarp, that the Apostle John once entered a public bathhouse to wash; but, learning that Cerinthus was within, he sprang from the place and fled from the door, for he could not endure to enter under the same roof with him. And he urged those who were with him to do the same, saying, “Let us flee, lest the bath fall in, as long as Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.”

About this time also appeared, for a very short time, the heretical sect of those called the Nicolaitans. They boasted that Nicolaus was their author and founder, one of those Seven Deacons who, with Stephen, were appointed by the Apostles for the purpose of ministering to the poor. Clement of Alexandria, in the third book of his Stromata, relates the following things respecting him:

“Having a beautiful wife, and, after the ascension of the Savior, being accused by the Apostles of jealousy, he conducted her into their midst and gave permission, to any one of them who wished, to marry her. They say this was perfectly consistent and in accord with that saying of his, that 'everyone ought to abuse his own flesh'. And those who have adopted his heresy, imitating literally, blindly and foolishly this saying and example, rush headlong into committing fornication without shame. But I have ascertained that Nicolaus lived with no other woman than her to whom he was married, and that his own daughters continued in a state of virginity to old age, and that his son also remained uncorrupted. So it would appear therefore from these facts that, when he introduced into the midst of the Apostles his wife, whom he jealously loved, he was evidently rather renouncing and suppressing his passion; and therefore, he was inculcating self-control in the face of those pleasures that are eagerly pursued, when he used the expression, ‘we ought to abuse the flesh’. So it would appear therefore from these facts that, according to the saying of our Lord, he did not wish to serve two masters, the flesh and the Lord. But they say that Matthew also Taught in the same manner that we ought to fight against and to abuse the flesh, and not give way to any thing for the sake of pleasure, but strengthen the soul by faith and knowledge.”

Again, it may be enough to have said so much concerning those who then, on the pretext of his words, attempted to twist and mutilate the truth, whose sectarian heresy afterward became suddenly entirely extinct more quickly than can be said.

There have been many like these, who, promoting their errors and falsehoods and demonic deceptions as truth, boldly proclaim that the chief Shepherds and leaders of the Assembly of the Lord, whom we are commanded by Christ and the scriptures to obey, have led the Assembly of the Lord into Great Apostasy from the truth, accusing them of teaching as doctrines the commandments of men, and of departing from the truth by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons through the pretensions of liars destitute of the truth. These are evil men and women who reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries, like Korah in rebellion against Moses, imposters who go on from bad to worse, individuals of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith, deceivers and deceived, who by defaming the Shepherds of God’s people, and the doctrine of life, seek with confident expectation to lead astray ignorant and unstable persons out of the light of Christ into the dense darkness of their own errors, lies and falsehoods, even unto death, distorting the scriptures to their own destruction. They went out and away from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been truly of the truth and of us they would have continued to remain in fellowship with us; but they departed with their followers, establishing their own assemblies, that it might be plain to all that they all are not of us, nor are they of the truth revealed by God. For of necessity there must be divisions and factions among us in order that those who are genuine among us may be recognized. That is why it is written:

Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to give account. Let them do this with joy, and not with sadness, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

Domitian also, like them a manifest enemy of souls, claiming to be God, having shown great cruelty toward many, and unjustly put to death no small number of well-born and notable men at Rome, and having without cause exiled and confiscated the property of a great many other illustrious men, finally became a true successor to Nero himself in his hatred and enmity toward God. And while many ignorant scholars pretend otherwise in their prejudice against truth, and close their eyes to the evidence before them, he was in fact the second that stirred up a persecution against us, although his father Vespasian had undertaken nothing prejudicial to us. After the conquest of Jerusalem, Vespasian had ordered a search be made for all descendants of David so that no member of the royal house should be left among the Jews, which resulted in another great persecution of the Jews, and of Christians who were assumed to be a sect of the Jews. This policy under Vespasian had been introduced to eliminate any potential leaders of rebellions, but with Domitian it was pure religious oppression. According to Tertullian the Apostle John was plunged into boiling oil and emerged unhurt, and from there was committed to his island exile.

The Apostle John’s exile to the island of Patmos took place under Domitian, and many believe that the beloved Apostle wrote the Book of Revelation around A.D. 95, in the fifteenth year of Domitian’s reign, after the emperor expelled the philosophers from Rome and Italy. It is said that the Apostle and evangelist John, who was still alive during that reign, in this persecution was condemned to dwell on the island of Patmos as a consequence of his testimony to the divine Word, Jesus.

From what we see at that time, participation in the feasts held in honor of the divinity of Domitian the tyrant was made the test for the eastern Christians. Those who did not adore the image of this beast were slain; for he proved to be a beast like Nero, as if his mortal wound had healed. The Book of the Apocalypse was written in the midst of this storm, when many of the Christians had already perished and more were to follow them. Rome, the great Babylon, was drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. The author of the Book of Apocalypse joins to his sharp denunciation of the persecutors words of encouragement for the faithful by foretelling the downfall of the great city, a harlot who made the earth drunk with the wine of her whoredom, and steeped her robe in their blood.


This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things which must happen soon, which he sent and made known by his messenger to his servant, John, who testified to God’s Word, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, about everything that he saw. Blessed is he who reads aloud to the Assembly and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written in it, for the time is at hand.
John, to the seven assemblies that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from God, who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven spirits who are before his throne; and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and washed us from our sins by his blood; and he made us to be a Kingdom, PriestsHiereis—to his God and Father; to him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, including those who pierced him. All the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. Even so, Amen.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
I John, your brother and partner with you in the Tribulation, Kingdom, and Perseverance in Christ Jesus, was on the isle that is called Patmos because of God’s Word and the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet saying, “What you see, write in a book and send to the seven assemblies: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”
I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. Having turned, I saw seven golden lamp stands. And among the lamp stands was one like a son of man, clothed with a robe reaching down to his feet, and with a criss-crossed golden sash girding his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace. His voice was like the sound of many waters. He had seven stars in his right hand. Out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining at its brightest. When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man.
He laid his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last, and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever more. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades. Write therefore the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will happen hereafter; the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lamp stands. The seven stars are the angels, messengers, of the seven assemblies. The seven lamp stands are seven assemblies.
To the messemger of the Assembly in Ephesus write:
“He who holds the seven stars in his right hand, he who walks among the seven golden lamp stands says these things:
“I know your works, and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and have tested those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and found them false. You have perseverance and have endured for my name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I am coming to you swiftly, and will move your lamp stand out of its place, unless you repent. But this you have, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of my God.
To the messenger of the Assembly in Smyrna write:
“The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life says these things:
“I know your works, oppression, and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews, and they are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not be afraid of the things which you are about to suffer. Behold, the Devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested; and you will have Tribulation for ten days. Be faithful to death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. He who overcomes will not be harmed by the second death.
To the messemger of the Assembly in Pergamum write:
“He who has the sharp two-edged sword says these things:
“I know your works and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. You held firmly to my name, and did not deny my faith in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the Teaching of Balaam, who Taught Balak to throw a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. So you also have some who hold likewise to the Teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent therefore, or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows but he who receives it.
To the messenger of the Assembly in Thyatira write:
“The Son of God, who has his eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet are like burnished brass, says these things:
“I know your works, your love, faith, service, patient endurance, and that your last works are more than the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate your woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. She Teaches and seduces my servants to commit sexual immorality, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great oppression, unless they repent of her works. I will kill her children with Death, and all the assemblies will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts. I will give to each one of you according to your deeds. But to you I say, to the rest who are in Thyatira, as many as do not have this Teaching, who do not know what some call ‘the deep things of Satan,’ to you I say, I am not putting any other burden on you. Nevertheless, hold that which you have firmly to the day I come. He who overcomes, and he who keeps my works to the end, to him I will give authority over the nations. He will rule them with a rod of iron, shattering them like clay pots; as I also have received of my Father: and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.
“And To the messenger of the Assembly in Sardis write:
“He who has the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars says these things:
“I know your works, that you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and keep the things that remain, which you were about to throw away, for I have found no works of yours perfected before my God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If therefore you will not watch, I will come as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. Nevertheless you have a few names in Sardis that did not defile their garments. They will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will be arrayed in white garments, and I will in no way blot his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.
To the messenger of the Assembly in Philadelphia write:
“He who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one can shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says these things:
“I know your works (behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one can shut), that you have a little power, and kept my word, and did not deny my name. Behold, I hand over some of the synagogue of Satan, of those who say they are Jews, and they are not, but lie. Behold, I will make them to come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you. Because you kept my command to endure, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, which is to come on the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. I am coming quickly! Hold firmly that which you have, so that no one takes your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the Temple of my God, and he will go out from there no more. I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.
To the messenger of the Assembly in Laodicea write:
“The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Head of God’s creation, says these things:
“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;’ and do not know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked; I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see. As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me. He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.”
After these things I looked and saw a door opened in heaven, and the first voice that I heard, like a trumpet speaking with me, was one saying, “Come up here, and I will show you the things which must happen after this.”
Immediately I was in the spirit. Behold, there was a throne set in heaven, and one sitting on the throne that looked like a jasper stone and a sardius. There was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald to look at. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones. On the thrones were twenty-four Presbyters sitting, dressed in white garments, with crowns of gold on their heads. Out of the throne proceed lightnings, sounds, and thunders. There were seven lamps of fire burning before his throne, which are the seven spirits of God. Before the throne was something like a sea of glass, similar to crystal. In the middle of the throne, and around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes before and behind. The first creature was like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a face like a man, and the fourth was like a flying eagle. The four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within. They have no rest day and night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come!
When the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to him who sits on the throne, to him who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four Presbyters fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives forever and ever, and throw their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed, and were created!
I saw, in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a book written inside and outside, sealed shut with seven seals. I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the book, and to break its seals?”
No one in heaven above, or on the earth, or under the earth, was able to open the book, or to look in it. And I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open the book, or to look in it. One of the Presbyters said to me, “Do not weep. Behold, the Lion who is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome; he opens the book and its seven seals.”
I saw in the middle of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the middle of the Presbyters, a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. Then he came, and he took it out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne. Now when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four Presbyters fell down before the Lamb, each one having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. They sang a new song, saying,
“You are worthy to take the book, and to open its seals: for you were killed, and bought us for God with your blood, out of every tribe, language, people, and nation, and made us kings and Priestshiereis—to our God, and we will reign on earth.”
I saw, and I heard something like a voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the Presbyters; and the number of them was ten thousands of ten thousands, and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who has been killed to receive the power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and blessing!
I heard every created thing which is in heaven, on the earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them, saying,
“To him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb be the blessing, the honor, the glory, and the dominion, forever and ever! Amen!
The four living creatures said, “Amen!
The Presbyters fell down and worshiped.
I saw that the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying, as with a voice of thunder, “Come and see!
And behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow. A crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.
When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come!
Another came out, a red horse. To him who sat on it was given power to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another. There was given to him a great sword.
When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come and see!
And behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a balance in his hand. I heard a voice in the middle of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius! Do not damage the oil and the wine!
When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the fourth living creature saying, “Come and see!
And behold, a pale horse, and he who sat on it, his name was Death. Hades followed with him. Authority over one fourth of the earth, to kill with the sword, with famine, with death, and by the wild animals of the earth was given to them.
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been killed for the word of God, and for the testimony which they had given. They cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, before you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
A long white robe was given to each of them. They were told that they should rest, waiting while their fellow servants and their brothers, who would also be killed even as they were, should complete their course.
I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood. The stars of the sky fell to the earth, like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when it is shaken by a great wind. The sky was removed like a scroll when it is rolled up. Every mountain and island were moved out of their places. The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains. They cried out to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath has come; and who is able to stand?”
After this, I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, so that no wind would blow on the earth, or on the sea, or on any tree. I saw another messenger ascend from the sunrise, having the seal of the living God. He cried with a loud voice to the four messengers to whom it was given to harm the earth and the sea, saying, “Do not harm the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, before we have sealed the bondservants of our God on their foreheads!
I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel:
of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve thousand,
of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand,
of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand,
of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand,
of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand,
of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand,
of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand,
of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand,
of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand,
of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand,
of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand,
of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of all tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands. They cried with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation be to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!
All these angels were standing around the throne, the Presbyters, and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before his throne, and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power, and might, be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
One of the Presbyters answered, saying to me, “These who are arrayed in white robes, who are they, and from where did they come?”
I told him, “My lord, you know.”
He said to me, “These are those who came out of the great affliction of distress. They washed their robes, and made them white in the Lamb’s blood. Therefore they are before the throne of God, they serve him day and night in his Temple. He who sits on the throne will spread his Tabernacle over them. They will never be hungry, neither thirsty any more; neither will the sun beat on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the middle of the throne Shepherds them, and leads them to springs of waters of life. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. I saw the seven messengers who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.
Another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer. Much incense was given to him, that he should add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. The smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the messenger’s hand. The angel took the censer, and he filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it on the earth. There followed thunders, sounds, lightnings, and an earthquake.
The seven messengers who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.
The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. One third of the earth was burnt up, and one third of the trees were burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
The second messenger sounded, and something like a great burning mountain was thrown into the sea. One third of the sea became blood, and one third of the living creatures which were in the sea died. One third of the ships were destroyed.
The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from the sky, burning like a torch, and it fell on one third of the rivers, and on the springs of the waters. The name of the star is called “Wormwood.” One third of the waters became wormwood. Many people died from the waters, because they were made bitter.
The fourth messenger sounded, and one third of the sun was struck, and one third of the moon, and one third of the stars; so that one third of them would be darkened, and the day would not shine for one third of it, and the night in the same way.
I saw, and I heard an eagle, flying in mid heaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe! Woe! Woe for those who dwell on the earth, because of the other voices of the trumpets of the three angels, who are yet to sound!
The fifth messenger sounded, and I saw a star from the sky which had fallen to the earth. The key to the pit of the abyss was given to him. He opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke from a burning furnace. The sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke from the pit. Then out of the smoke came locusts on the earth, and power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were told that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those people who do not have God’s seal on their foreheads. They were given power not to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion, when it strikes a person. In those days people will seek death, and will in no way find it. They will desire to die, and death will flee from them. The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for war. On their heads were something like golden crowns, and their faces were like men’s faces. They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like those of lions. They had breastplates, like breastplates of iron. The sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, or of many horses rushing to war. They have tails like those of scorpions, and stings. In their tails they have power to harm men for five months. They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is “Abaddon”, but in Greek, he has the name “Apollyon”.
The first woe is past. Behold, there are still two woes coming after this.
The sixth angel sounded. I heard a voice from the horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth messenger who had one trumpet, “Free the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates!
The four messengers were freed who had been prepared for that hour and day and month and year, so that they might kill one third of mankind. The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million. I heard the number of them. Thus I saw the horses in the vision, and those who sat on them, having breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the heads of lions. Out of their mouths proceed fire, smoke, and sulfur. By these three plagues were one third of mankind killed: by the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur, which proceeded out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths, and in their tails. For their tails are like serpents, and have heads, and with them they harm. The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they would not worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk. They did not repent of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their sexual immorality, nor of their thefts.
I saw a mighty angel coming down out of the sky, clothed with a cloud. A rainbow was on his head. His face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire. He had in his hand a little open book. He set his right foot on the sea, and his left on the land. He cried with a loud voice, as a lion roars. When he cried, the seven thunders uttered their voices. When the seven thunders sounded, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from the sky saying, “Seal up the things which the seven thunders said, and do not write them.”
The messenger whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land lifted up his right hand to the sky, and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, that there will no longer be delay, but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished, as he declared to his servants, the prophets. The voice which I heard from heaven, again speaking with me, said, “Go, take the book which is open in the hand of the messenger who stands on the sea and on the land.”
I went to the angel, telling him to give me the little book.
He said to me, “Take it, and eat it up. It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.”
I took the little book out of the messenger’s hand, and ate it up. It was as sweet as honey in my mouth. When I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. They told me, “You must prophesy again over many peoples, nations, languages, and kings.”
A reed like a rod was given to me. Someone said, “Rise, and measure God’s Temple, and the altar, and those who worship in it. Leave out the court which is outside of the Temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the nations. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months. I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lamp stands, standing before the Lord of the earth. If anyone desires to harm them, fire proceeds out of their mouth and devours their enemies. If anyone desires to harm them, he must be killed in this way. These have the power to shut up the sky, that it may not rain during the days of their prophecy. They have power over the waters, to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire. When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them. Their dead bodies will be in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. From among the peoples, tribes, languages, and nations people will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days, and will not allow their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb. Those who dwell on the earth rejoice over them, and they will be glad. They will give gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.”
After the three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood on their feet. Great fear fell on those who saw them. I heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!
They went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies saw them. In that day there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe comes quickly.
The seventh angel sounded, and great voices in heaven followed, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of his Anointed. He will reign forever and ever!
The twenty-four Presbyters, who sit on their thrones before God’s throne, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying: “We give you thanks, Lord God, the Almighty, the one who is and who was; because you have taken your great power, and reigned. The nations were angry, and your wrath came, as did the time for the dead to be judged, and to give your bondservants the prophets, their reward, as well as to the saints, and those who fear your name, to the small and the great; and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”
God’s Temple that is in heaven was opened, and the ark of the Lord’s covenant was seen in his Temple. Lightnings, sounds, thunders, an earthquake, and great hail followed.
A great sign was seen in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child. She cried out in pain, laboring to give birth.
Another sign was seen in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns. His tail drew one third of the stars of the sky, and threw them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. Her child was caught up to God, and to his throne. The woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that there they may nourish her one thousand two hundred sixty days.
There was war in heaven. Michael and his messengers made war on the dragon. The dragon and his angels made war. They did not prevail, neither was a place found for them any more in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his messengers were thrown down with him. I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, the power, and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Anointed One has come; for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night. They overcame him because of the Lamb’s blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They did not love their life, even to death. Therefore rejoice, heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the Devil has gone down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time.”
When the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. Two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, so that she might be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. The serpent spewed water out of his mouth after the woman like a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the devastating torrent. The earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon spewed out of his mouth. The dragon grew angry with the woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
Then I stood on the sand of the sea. I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads. On his horns were ten crowns, and on his heads, blasphemous names. The beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. One of his heads looked like it had been wounded fatally. His fatal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled at the beast. They worshiped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?”
A mouth speaking great things and blasphemy was given to him. Authority to make war for forty-two months was given to him. He opened his mouth for blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his dwelling, those who dwell in heaven. It was given to him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. Authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation was given to him. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been killed. If anyone has an ear, let him hear.
If anyone is to go into captivity, he will go into captivity. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, he must be killed. Here is the endurance and the faith of the saints.
I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke like a dragon. He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. He makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. He performs great signs, even making fire come down out of the sky to the earth in the sight of people. He deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs he was granted to do in front of the beast; saying to those who dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast who had the sword wound and lived. It was given to him to give breath to it, to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He causes all, the small and the great, the rich and the poor, and the free and the slave, to be given a mark on the right hand, or on the forehead; and that no one would be able to buy or to sell, unless he has that mark, the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. He who has understanding, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is six hundred sixty-six.
I saw, and behold, the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him one hundred forty-four thousand, having his name, and the name of his Father, written on their foreheads. I heard a sound from heaven, like the sound of many waters, and like the sound of a great thunder. The sound which I heard was like that of harpists playing on their harps. They sing a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures and the Presbyters. No one could learn the song except the one hundred forty-four thousand, those who had been redeemed out of the earth. These are those who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed by Jesus from among men, the first fruits to God and to the Lamb. In their mouth was found no lie, for they are blameless.
I saw an ambassador of heaven flying in mid-heaven, having an eternal proclamation of Good News to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, and to every nation, tribe, language, and people. He said with a loud voice, “Fear the Lord, and give him glory; for the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and the springs of waters!
Another, a second angel, followed, saying, “Babylon the great has fallen, which has made all the nations to drink of the wine of her unholy passion.”
Another ambassador, a third, followed them, saying with a great voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead, or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is prepared unmixed in the cup of his anger. He will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. They have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”
I heard the voice from heaven saying, “Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ”
“Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors; for their works follow with them.”
I looked, and behold, a white cloud; and on the cloud one sitting like a son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.
Another angel came out of the Temple, crying with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Thrust in your sickle, and reap; for the hour to reap has come; for the harvest of the earth is ripe!
He who sat on the cloud thrust his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.
Another messenger came out of the Temple which is in heaven. He also had a sharp sickle.
Another angel came out from the altar, he who has power over fire, and he called with a great voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, “Thrust in your sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for the earth’s grapes are fully ripe!
The messenger thrust his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vintage of the earth, and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God. The wine press was trodden outside of the city, and blood came out of the wine press, even to the bridles of the horses, as far as two hundred miles.
I saw another great and marvelous sign in the sky: seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them God’s wrath is finished. I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who overcame the beast, his image, and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. They sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,
“Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God, the Almighty! Righteous and true are your ways, you King of the nations. Who would not fear you, Lord, and glorify your name? For you only are holy. For all the nations will come and worship before you. For your righteous acts have been revealed.”
After these things I looked, and the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony in heaven was opened. The seven messengers who had the seven plagues came out, clothed with pure, bright linen, and wearing golden sashes around their breasts.
One of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever. The Temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power. No one was able to enter into the Temple, before the seven plagues of the seven messengers would be finished.
I heard a loud voice out of the Temple, saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God on the earth!
The first went, and poured out his bowl into the earth, and it became a harmful and evil sore on the people who had the mark of the beast, and who worshiped his image.
The second messenger poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man. Every living thing in the sea died.
The third poured out his bowl into the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. I heard the angel of the waters saying, “You are righteous, who are and who were, you Holy One, because you have judged these things. For they poured out the blood of the saints and the prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. They deserve this.”
I heard the altar cry out, “Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments.”
The fourth poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was given to him to scorch men with fire. People were scorched with great heat, and people blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.
The fifth poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was darkened. They gnawed their tongues because of the pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores. They did not repent of their works.
The sixth poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates. Its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings that come from the east.
I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three loathsome spirits, resembling frogs; for they are spirits of demons, performing signs; which go out to the kings of the whole inhabited earth, to gather them together for the war of that great day of God, the Almighty.
“Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his clothes, so that he does not go naked, and be exposed.”
And they gathered themselves together into the place which is called in Hebrew, Har-Megiddo.
The seventh poured out his bowl into the air. A loud voice came out of the Temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” There were lightnings, sounds, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since there were men on the earth, so great an earthquake, so mighty.
The great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. Every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. Great hailstones, about the weight of a talent, came down out of the sky on people. People blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, for this plague was exceedingly severe.
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here. I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and those who dwell in the earth were made drunken with the wine of her fornication.”
He carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness. I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet-colored animal, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication on the earth. And on her forehead a name was written, “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled with great amazement.
The messenger said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. The beast that you saw was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss and to go into destruction. Those who dwell on the earth and whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel when they see that the beast was, and is not, and shall come. Here is the mind that has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sits. They are seven kings. Five have fallen, the one is, the other has not yet come. When he comes, he must continue a little while. The beast that was, and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven; and he goes to destruction. The ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority as kings, with the beast, for one hour. These have one intent, and they give their power and authority to the beast. These will war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings, and those who are with him are called, chosen, and faithful.”
He said to me, “The waters which you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages. The ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the prostitute, and will make her desolate, and will make her naked, and will eat her flesh, and will burn her utterly with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose, and to be of one intent, and to give their kingdom to the beast, before the words of God should be accomplished. The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.”
After these things, I saw another ambassador coming down from heaven, having great authority. The earth was illuminated with his glory. He cried with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and she has become a habitat of demons, a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird! For all the nations have drunk of the wine of her unclean immorality, the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from the overwhelming abundance of her unbridled passion.”
I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, that you have no risk of participation in her sins, and that you do not share in her plagues, for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Give to her just as she gave, and repay her double for her works. In the cup which she mixed, mix to her a double draft. However much she glorified herself, and grew wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, ‘I sit a queen, and am no widow, and will in no way see mourning.’ Therefore in one day her plagues will come: death, mourning, and famine; and she will be utterly burned with fire; for the Lord God who has judged her is strong. The kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived wantonly with her, will weep and wail over her, when they look at the smoke of her burning, standing far away for the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For your judgment has come in one hour.’ The merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise any more; merchandise of gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet, all expensive wood, every vessel of ivory, every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble; and cinnamon, incense, perfume, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, sheep, horses, chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls. The fruits which your soul lusted after have been lost to you, and all things that were dainty and sumptuous have perished from you, and you will find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, will stand far away for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning; and saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, she who was dressed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls! For in an hour such great riches are made desolate.’ Every ship master, and everyone who sails anywhere, and mariners, and as many as gain their living by sea, stood far away, and cried out as they looked at the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like the great city?’ They cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had their ships in the sea were made rich by reason of her great wealth!’ For she is made desolate in one hour. Rejoice over her, O heaven, you saints, Apostles, and prophets; for God has judged your judgment on her.”
A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying,
“Thus with violence will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down, and will be found no more at all.
The voice of harpists, minstrels, flute players, and trumpeters will be heard no more at all in you.
Craftsmen, of whatever craft, will be found no more at all in you.
The sound of a mill will be heard no more at all in you.
The light of a lamp will shine no more at all in you.
The voice of the bridegroom and of the bride will be heard no more at all in you;
for your merchants were the princes of the earth; for with your sorcery all the nations were deceived. In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slaughtered on the earth.”
After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Hallelujah! Salvation, power, and glory belong to our God: for true and righteous are his judgments. For he has judged the great prostitute, who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.”
A second said, “Hallelujah! Her smoke goes up forever and ever.”
The twenty-four Presbyters and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne, saying, “Amen! Hallelujah!
A voice came from the throne, saying, “Give praise to our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, the small and the great!
I heard something like the voice of a great multitude, and like the roar of many waters, and like the voice of mighty thunders, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns! Let us rejoice and be exceedingly glad, and let us give the glory to him. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready.”
It was granted to her that she might array herself in bright, pure, fine linen: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
He said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ ”
He said to me, “These are true words of God.”
I fell down before his feet to worship him. He said to me, “Look! Do not do it! I am a fellow bondservant with you and with your brothers who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
I saw the heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it is called Faithful and True. In righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name inscribed which no one knows but he himself. He is clothed in a robe drenched with blood. The name by which he is known is “The Word of God.” The armies of heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in white, pure, fine linen. Out of his mouth proceeds a sharp, double-edged sword, which he uses to strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He will tread the wine press of the rage of the wrath of God, the Almighty. He has on his garment and on his thigh a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”
I saw an angel standing in the sun. He cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in mid-heaven, “Come! Be gathered together to the great supper of God, that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, and small and great.”
I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him who sat on the horse, and against his army. The beast was seized, taken captive, and with him the false prophet who worked the signs in his sight, with which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. The rest were killed with the sword of him who sits on the horse, the sword which comes out of his mouth. All the birds were filled with their flesh.
I saw a messenger coming down out of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. He seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, before the thousand years were finished. After this, he must be freed for a short time.
I saw thrones, and those who sat on them, and judgment was given to them. I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus, and for the word of God, who did not worship the beast nor his image, and did not receive the mark on their foreheads or on their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life before the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who participates in the first resurrection. Over these, the second death has no power, but they will be Priestshiereis—of God and of Christ, and will reign with him a thousand years.
And after the thousand years, Satan will be released from his prison, and he will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for combat; the number of whom is as great as the sand of the sea. They went up over the width of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. Fire came down out of heaven from God, and devoured them. The Devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet are also. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them. I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged by the things which were written in those books, according to their works. The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. They were judged, each one according to his works. Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was catapulted into the lake of fire.
I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more. I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. I heard an immense voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with mankind, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying out, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.
He who sits on the throne said, “See, I make all things new.”
He said, “Write, for these words of God are trustworthy and true.”
He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will freely give water from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes, will have this heritage. I will be his God, and he will be my son. As for the cowardly, the unbelieving, the polluted, as for the abominable, murderers, sexually promiscuous, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
One of the seven messengers of heaven who had the seven bowls loaded to the full with the seven last plagues came and spoke to me, saying, “Come here. I will show you the Bride, the Lamb’s wife.”
He carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, shining like a most precious jewel, as if it were a rare jasper stone, clear as crystal; having a great and high wall; having twelve gates, and at the gates twelve ambassadors of heaven; and names engraved on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. On the east were three gates; and on the north three gates; and on the south three gates; and on the west three gates. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.
He who spoke with me had for a measuring rod a golden reed, to measure the city, its gates, and its walls. The city is square, and its length is as great as its width. He measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand stadia, fifteen hundred miles. Its length, breadth, and height are equal. Its wall is one hundred and forty-four cubits, two hundred and ten feet, by the measure of a man, that is, of a messenger of heaven. The wall was constructed of jasper. The city was pure gold, like pure glass. The foundations of the city wall were adorned with every precious stone. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprasus; the eleventh, jacinth; and the twelfth, amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls. Each one of the gates was made of one pearl. The street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
I saw no temple in the city, for its Temple is the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb. The city has no need for the sun, neither of the moon, to shine on it, for the very glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light. The kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it, their wealth; its gates will in no way be shut by day, for there will be no night there; and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it, their wealth. There will in no way enter into it anything unclean, or one who habitually practices abominations, or any falsehood or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
He showed me the river of the water of life, brilliant as crystal, pouring forth out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of the street of the city. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will be no accursed thing any more, for the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants shall serve and worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no night, and they need no lamp light or sunlight; for the Lord God will illuminate them. They will reign forever and ever.
He said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord who is God of the spirits of the prophets sent his messenger to show to his bondservants the things which must happen soon.”
“Behold, I come quickly.”
Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.
Now I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. When I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who had shown me these things.
He said to me, “See you do not do it! I am a fellow bondservant with you and with your brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”
He said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. He who acts unjustly, let him act unjustly still. He who is filthy, let him be filthy still. He who is righteous, let him do righteousness still. He who is holy, let him be holy still.”
“Behold, I come quickly. My reward is with me, to repay to each man according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. I, Jesus, have sent my messenger to testify these things to you for the assemblies. I am the root and the offspring of David; the Bright and Morning Star.”
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!
He who hears, let him say, “Come!
He who is thirsty, let him come.
He who desires, let him take the water of life freely.
I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book. If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book.
He who testifies these things says, “Yes, I come quickly.”
Amen! Yes, come, Lord Jesus.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints. Amen.


This book came to be read in the assemblies of the Lord. St. Irenæus, in his work Against Heresies, in the fifth book, the thirtieth chapter, discusses the number of the name of Antichrist in what is called the Apocalypse of John, known as the Revelation, and speaks about the Antichrist as follows:

“If it were necessary for his name to be proclaimed openly at the present time, it would have been declared by him who saw the Revelation. For it was seen not long ago, but almost in our own generation, at the end of the reign of Domitian.”

We understand that Caius in The Disputation which is attributed to him, writes as follows respecting the heretic Cerinthus:

“But Cerinthus, by means of revelations which he pretends were written by a great Apostle, also falsely pretended marvelous things which he falsely claims were shown him by angels; asserting that after the resurrection there will be set up an earthly kingdom of Christ, and that the flesh, that is, men, dwelling in Jerusalem will again be subject to desires and pleasures. And also being an enemy of the divine Scriptures of God, he asserts, with a purpose to deceive men, that there will be an interval of a thousand years for celebrating marriage festivals.”

Also Dionysius, who was later Episcopos of the parish of Alexandria, in the second book of his work On the Promises, where he says some things which he draws from tradition concerning the Apocalypse of John, mentions this same man in these words:

“But it is highly probable that Cerinthus, the same man who founded the heretical sect that bears his name, desiring the reputation of authority, deliberately prefixed the name to his fiction. For one of the doctrines which he Taught was this: that Christ will have an earthly kingdom. And as he was himself voluptuously devoted to the pleasures of the body and completely sensual, he conjectured that that kingdom would consist of those things which he craved, to gratify the appetite of the stomach and the lust of sexual passion, that is to say, in eating and drinking and marrying, or in things by which he supposed these sensual delights might more decently be expressed, as in festivals and sacrifices and the slaying of sacrificial victims, under the guise of which he thought he could indulge his appetites with a better grace.”

This is according to the account of Dionysius.

Meanwhile, outside the Assembly of the Lord, among the opponents of the emperor Domitian was a group of doctrinaire senators, friends of Tacitus and Pliny, whose head was the younger Helvidius Priscus, whose father of the same name had been executed by Vespasian. Their Stoic views were probably the cause of Domitian’s expulsions from Rome on two occasions of those who posed as “philosophers”.

At least twelve former consuls were executed during his reign, but there is no reason to think they were Stoics.

He put to death the younger Helvidius, for writing a farce, in which, under the character of Paris and Oenone, he reflected on his having divorced his wife; and also Flavius Sabinus, one of his cousins, as already mentioned, because, on his being chosen at the consular election to that office, the public crier had, by a blunder, proclaimed him to the people not consul, but emperor.

Becoming still more savage after his success in the civil war, Domitian used the utmost diligence to discover those of the rebellious party who departed suddenly and secretly to avoid legal execution: many of them he racked with a newly invented torture, inserting fire through their private parts; and from some he cut off their hands. It is certain that only two of any note were pardoned, a tribune who wore the narrow stripe, and a centurion. To clear themselves of the charge of being connected with any rebellious project, they proved themselves to be guilty of prostitution, of sodomy, and as a consequence were unable to exercise any influence either over the general or the soldiers.

However, nothing affected him so much as an answer given by the astrologer Ascletario, and the astrologer’s fate afterward. On being betrayed by an informer, he did not deny having predicted some future events, confessing that he had a foreknowledge of them from the principles of his art. Domitian then asked him what end he thought he himself should come to. To which he replied, “I shall in a short time be torn to pieces by dogs.”

Domitian ordered him to be slain immediately, and to be carefully buried, to demonstrate the empty vanity of his art. But during preparations to execute this order, it happened that the funeral pyre was blown down by a sudden storm, and the body, half-burnt, was torn to pieces by dogs; and this being observed by Latinus, the comic actor, as he happened to pass by, he told it, along with other news of the day, to the emperor at supper.

Again, we say that he executed another niece’s husband, the consul Flavius Clemons, who was his last victim, on the charge of atheism because he was sympathetic to the plight of the Roman Jews. For among the more famous Christian martyrs in the Second Persecution were Domitian’s cousin, Flavius Clemens, the consul, and Marcus Acilius Glabrio who had also been consul. On one count or the other, as Jews or as atheists, the Christians were liable to punishment. His last victim, Flavius Clemens, his cousin-german, the son of an aunt, was a man whom the Roman Tacitus characterizes as below contempt for his lack of energy, whose sons, being then of very tender age, he had avowedly designated as his successors, and, discarding their former names, had ordered one to be called Vespasian, and the other Domitian; whose niece was Flavia Domitilla, the daughter of his sister. Nevertheless, Domitian suddenly put him to death on some very slight suspicion, almost before he had fully completed his consulship. The execution of his cousin Flavius Clemens in A.D. 95 convinced his closest associates that no one was safe. By this violent act he very much hastened his own destruction. Flavius Clemens was killed and his wife Flavia Domitilla banished for being convicted of 'godlessness'. Most likely they were sympathizers with Jews. It is most certain that they did not worship Domitian as God. Flavia Domitilla, the wife of Flavius Clemens, was banished to Pandateria, now called Ventotene, one of two places of exile, where emperors sent family members who annoyed them, or political enemies. But the persecution was not confined to such noble victims. We read of many others who suffered death or the loss of their goods.

Indeed, the Teaching of our faith flourished to such a degree at that time that even those writers far removed from our religious faith did not hesitate to mention in their histories the Domitian persecution, and the martyrdoms which took place during it. And moreover, they accurately indicate the time. For they record that in the fifteenth year of Domitian, which is A.D. 95, Flavia Domitilla, daughter of a sister of Flavius Clement, who at that time was one of the consuls of Rome, was sentenced to be exiled with many others to the island of Pontia, in consequence of testimony borne to Christ. And she was taken to Pandateria, which is Ventotene.

Becoming through these outrages against justice and civic virtue universally feared and odious, Domitian was at last removed by a conspiracy of his friends and favorite freedmen, in concert with his wife. A conspiracy, in which his wife joined, was formed against him.

Tertullian also has mentioned him in the following words:

“Domitian also, who possessed a share of Nero’s cruelty, attempted once to do the same thing that the latter did. But because he had, I suppose, some intelligence, he very soon ceased, and even recalled those whom he had banished.”

For of the family of the Lord there were still living the grandchildren of the Apostle Jude, who is said to have been the Lord’s brother according to the flesh. This same Domitian had previously ordered the execution of all who were descendants of King David’s line, and an old tradition alleges that some heretics accused the descendants of Jude, the brother of the Lord, humanly speaking, claiming that they were of David’s family and related to Christ himself. Information was given that they belonged to the family of David, and they were brought to the Emperor Domitian by the Evocatus. These things are related by Hegesippus.

The Evocatus, that is, a member of the Praetorian or Urban cohorts at Rome who had served his time but continued as a volunteer, brought them before Domitian Caesar, who, like King Herod, was afraid of the coming of Christ. For Domitian feared the coming of Christ as Herod also had feared it. And he asked them if they were descendants of David, and they confessed that they were.

Then he asked them how much property they owned, how much money they had; and they both answered that they had only nine thousand denarii, half belonging to each of them; and this did not consist of silver, but a piece of land which was only thirty-nine acres, from which they raised their taxes and supported themselves by their own labor. Then they showed him their hands, exhibiting the hardness of their bodies and the callouses on their hands produced by continuous toil, as evidence of their own labor.

And when Domitian asked them about Christ and his kingdom, its nature and origin, of what sort it was and its time of appearance, where and when it was to appear, they answered that it was not of this world or earthly, not a temporal nor an earthly kingdom, but angelic and heavenly, a heavenly and angelic one, and that it would appear and be established at the end of the world when he shall come in glory to judge the living and the dead, to give to everyone according to his works and deeds.

On hearing this, Domitian did not pass judgment against them and condemn them but, despising them as simple sorts of no account, he let them go free and ordered that the persecution against the Church, the Christian Assembly, cease, and by a decree he put a stop to the persecution. But when they were released, after their release, peace now being established, they became leaders of the Christian assemblies, both for their testimony and because they were of the Lord’s family; and they ruled the assemblies because they were witnesses and were also relatives of the Lord; and they lived on after the reign of Domitian through the reign of Nerva into the time of Trajan due to the ensuing peace. And so it happened, that just before the end of his reign Domitian ceased to persecute Christians and Jews. Because he still had some remaining intelligence, and not due to the genius of the emperor, but the sovereign Spirit of God, he ceased, and even recalled those whom he had banished.

From the beginning of the year, in A.D. 96, during eight months together there was so much lightning at Rome, and such accounts of the phenomenon were brought from other parts, that at last he cried out, “Let him now strike whom he will.”

The Capitol was struck by lightning, as well as the temple of the Flavian family, along with the Palatine-house, and even his own bed-chamber. The tablet also, inscribed upon the base of his triumphal statue, was carried away by the violence of the storm, and fell upon a neighboring monument. The tree which just before the advancement of Vespasian had been prostrated, and rose again, suddenly fell to the ground. According to the pagan priests, the goddess Fortune of Praeneste, to whom it was his custom on new year’s day to commend the empire for the ensuing year, and who had always supposedly given him a favorable reply, at last returned him a melancholy answer, and not without mention of blood; either according to a dream he had or according to the interpretation of omens by the priests of her temple. He also dreamed that Minerva, whom he worshipped to superstitious excess, was withdrawing from her sanctuary, declaring that she could protect him no longer, because Jupiter had disarmed her.

Concerning the plotting and mode of his death, the common account is this. The conspirators being in some doubt when and where they should attack him, whether while he was in the bath, or at supper, Stephanus, a steward of Domitilla’s, then under prosecution for defrauding his mistress, offered them his advice and assistance; and wrapping up his left arm, as if it was hurt, in wool and bandages for some days, to prevent suspicion, at the hour appointed he concealed a dagger in them.

The day before his death, Domitian ordered some dates, served up at table, to be kept to the next day, adding, “If I have the luck to use them.”

And turning to those who were nearest him, he said, “Tomorrow the moon in Aquarius will be bloody instead of watery, and an event will happen, which will be much talked about all the world over.”

About midnight, Domitian was so terrified that he leaped out of bed. After the night passed, that very morning he tried and passed sentence on a soothsayer sent from Germany, who being consulted about the lightning that had lately happened, predicted from it a change of government. As Domitian scratched an ulcerous bleeding tumor on his forehead, with the blood running down his face, he said, “Would this were all that is to befall me!

Then, on his asking the time of the day, they purposely told him it was the sixth hour of the day, instead of the fifth, noon, instead of 11 A.M., which was the hour he dreaded. Overjoyed at this information; as if all danger were now passed, and hastening to the bath, Parthenius, his chamberlain, stopped him, by saying that there was a person who had come to see him about a matter of great importance, which would allow no delay. At this, ordering all persons to withdraw, he retired into his chamber. The fifth hour of the day was passing away.

Stephanus then pretending to have made a discovery of a conspiracy, and being for that reason admitted, he presented to the emperor a memorial, which is a summary of the facts to be presented as grounds for an indictment against the accused, and while he was reading it in great astonishment, Stephanus stabbed him in the groin. But Domitian, though wounded, fought and struggled with him, making resistance. Then Clodianus, one of his guards, with Maximus, a freedman of Parthenius’s, and Saturius, his principal chamberlain, together with some gladiators, fell upon him and stabbed him in seven places. A boy who had the charge of the Lares in his bed-chamber, and was then in attendance as usual, gave these further particulars afterward: that he was ordered by Domitian, on receiving his first wound, to retrieve for him a dagger which lay under his pillow, and call in his domestics; but that he found nothing at the head of the bed, except the hilt of a poniard, and that all the doors were locked: that the emperor in the meantime got hold of Stephanus, and throwing him to the floor, struggled a long time with him; once, while endeavoring to wrench the dagger from him; again, while attempting to tear out Stephanus’s eyes, though his fingers were miserably mangled; and he was there slain. This is what the boy claims. And Domitian was slain on the fourteenth of the Kalends of October, fourteen days before one October, on the eighteenth of September; he was murdered, eighteen September, A.D. 96., in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the fifteenth of his reign, 849 A.U.C.. He was not slain by the sword, as his Chaldean astrologers had foretold; he was not slain at the fifth hour of the day. He had long entertained a suspicion of the year and day when he should die, and even of the very hour and manner of his death; all of which he had learned from the Chaldeans, professional astrologers from Babylon, when he was a very young man. His father Vespasian once at supper laughed at him for refusing to eat some mushrooms, saying that, if he already knew his fate, then he would be more afraid of the sword. He died instead by the dagger of the assassin, stabbed a full seven times, and also long after the arrival of the fifth hour of the day, passing just before the sixth hour.

His corpse was laid on a common bier and carried out by the public bearers, and buried by his nurse Phyllis, at his suburban villa on the Latin Way. But she afterward privately conveyed his remains to the temple of the Flavian family, and mingled them with the ashes of Julia, the daughter of Titus, whom she had also nursed.

The people showed little concern at his death, but the soldiers were roused by it to great indignation, and immediately endeavored to have him declared divus and ranked among the gods. They were also ready to revenge his loss, if there had been any to take the lead; but there was not one among them who would take it. However, they soon after effectively accomplished it, by resolutely demanding the punishment of all those who had been concerned in his assassination, as we shall relate.

In contrast, the Senate was so overjoyed, that they met in all haste, and in a full assembly reviled his memory in the most bitter terms; ordering ladders to be brought in, and his shields and images to be pulled down before their eyes, and dashed in pieces on the floor of the Senate-house, unanimously passing at the same time a decree to obliterate his titles everywhere, and abolish all memory of him.

It is said that Vespasian once saw in a dream a balance in the middle of the porch of the Palatine house exactly poised; in one pan of it stood Claudius and Nero, in the other, himself and his sons Titus and Domitian. According to the Roman Suetonius, the event corresponded to the symbol; for the reigns of the two parties were precisely of the same duration. However, this is not the only interpretation. Nero the persecutor of the Church was the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty; Domitian the persecutor of the Church was the end of the Flavian dynasty. Both had been placed in the balance of God.

Reading time about one hour fifteen minutes

The text of this chapter is a redaction of the informative sources listed and linked below, rearranged, chronologically sequenced, collated, condensed, combined and adapted, while seeking to preserve much of their expressive language, and in some instances updating and improving both their translations and the written copy. Parallel constructions and duplications in the text have been kept to a minimum as far as possible without loss of information.

Twelve Caesars: Domitian 9-10
Twelve Caesars: Domitian 14-17
Ecclesiastical History III, chapters 17–18

Revelation
—LXX Tobit 12:15
—LXX Wisdom 16:13
—LXX Wisdom 18:16
—LXX Sirach 1:8
—LXX Tobit 12:12
—LXX Tobit 12:15
—LXX Wisdom 16:22
—LXX Sirach 39:29
—LXX Wisdom 16:9
—LXX 2 Maccabees 2:7
—LXX 2 Maccabees 13:4
—LXX Wisdom 16:24
—LXX Tobit 13:18
—LXX 2 Maccabees 13:4
—LXX 2 Maccabees 7:9
—LXX Tobit 13:16-17
—LXX Tobit 13:11

Ecclesiastical History III, chapters 19–20


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Table of Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, in English translation, Joel Kalvesmaki 2013 (kalvesmaki.com)

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Table of LXX quotes and allusions in the New Testament


DOMITIAN
The Twelve Caesars: Domitian
Domitian: Roman Emperor (britannica.com)
Domitian (roman-emperors.org)
Domitian, by Donald L. Wasson (ancient.eu)
Domitian - Livius (livius.org)
Domitian - Ancient Roman Emperors (ancientromanemperors.net)
Domitian (romanemperors.com)
Alternative Facts: Domitian's Persecution of Christians, Mark Wilson (biblicalarchaeology.org)
Domitian (studylight.org)
Domitian Catholic Encyclopedia online (catholic.org)
Domitian - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)


See Conservapedia article
Domitian

Eccesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, Book III, chapters 17 through 18
Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org)

Chapter 17 The Persecution of the Christians under Domitian
Chapter 18 Of John the Apostle, and the Revelation
Chapter 19 Domitian Commands the Posterity of David to be slain
Chapter 20 Of the Relatives of Our Lord


"Aretinus Clemens, a man of consular rank, a former consul"

See Marcus Arrecinus Clemens (prefect 70) (military.wikia.com)
Marcus Arrecinus Clemens (prefect 70) - Wikipedia
Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Domitian XI (ebooks.adelaide.edu)
See Philip Massinger, The Roman Actor (play), 1626, a synoptical, alphabetical character list.
The Roman Actor - University of North Georgia (cord.ung.edu)

"punished according to the ancient usage."

According to Suetonius, Nero was sentenced by the Senate to be executed according to ancient custom: his head was to be thrust into a forked wooden restraint, and being held there, he was to be flogged with rods (sticks), and after that, finally crucified.

"When a Lanista, the master of a school of gladiators..."

See The Lanista (unrv.com) "A pimp of death, who sold the services of trained killers and butchers of men and women and children and wild animals in the circus and arena for sport.".

"A Parmularian guilty of talking impiously."

An arena fighter less in rank than a gladiator or retiarius.
See Parmularius - Gladiator (warriorsandlegends.com)
This Lanista happened to say that a Thracian was a match for a Marmillo, but not so for the exhibitor of the games—and the particular exhibitor of the games on this occasion was Domitian. Because the Lanista imprudently implied either that the Thracian gladiator was no match for the god-emperor Domitian, or worse, and more probably, that Domitian was no match for a marmillo, Domitian profoundly degraded this man who was master of a school of gladiators by both publicly labeling him a parmularian, and having him killed without a weapon, like a condemned slave. A murmillo gladiator was typically paired with a thraex gladiator.
See also
Note: occasionally, there are online proposals urging a legalized return to gladiatorial fights to the death as a form of justice, using as contestants men and women sentenced to death by the courts, in pairs and in groups, offering the winner/s a commutation of sentence from death to life imprisonment free of the fear of execution; also, occasionally, there are online suggestions of evidence that criminal cartels and terrorist organizations force their kidnapped victims to fight to the death; normally, all such online sites quickly disappear soon after being posted and accessed, and persistent attempts to access them or use them invite investigation by law enforcement. See Human trafficking.

"vellum"

Fine parchment of calf skin.
The word "vellum" is derived from the Latin word "vitulinum" ("made from calf"), leading to the Old French "vélin" ("calfskin"). It often refers to an elegant, high quality parchment made from calf skin, as distinct from parchment made from the skin of other animals. It is prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. See
Differences between Parchment, Vellum and Paper (archives.gov)
Images of vellum (bing.com)

"extracts of the speeches of kings and generals from the historical writings of Titus Livius"

Livy, a Roman historian.

"Mago"

A Carthaginian general and brother of Hannibal.
Mago Barca (livius.org)

"Paetus Thrasea"

A Roman senator.
Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus: Roman senator (britannica.com)
Thrasea Paetus and the so-called 'Stoic opposition' (dcc.dickinson.edu)

"He showed himself the tool of Satan, and demanded all men everywhere call him Lord and God."

Much Christian apologetical literature of the first four centuries consistently makes this assertion about Domitian, beginning with writings in the New Testament.

"the Apostle Paul, whom they call an apostate from the law"

Similarly, there are liberal theologians and Christian historians who claim that Paul altered Christianity from the original, pure form as taught by Jesus, and corrupted it by his own subtle arguments, imposing his own opinions through the sheer forcefulness of his personality and persuasive rhetorical skills gained from his rabbinical training under Gamaliel, and invented a new religion. This liberal argument is only a modified form of the fundamentalist doctrine of the Great Apostasy. See the following articles:
The skepticism of many scholars is based on two fundamental assumptions and drawing one conclusion:
  • Jesus did not keep his promises to remain with us and to send the Holy Spirit to remain with us and lead us into all truth forever.
  • Jesus did not appear to Paul and the Holy Spirit did not inspire his teaching and writing.
  • Therefore (they claim): the doctrinal claims of Christianity about Jesus and salvation are not true. This is specious reasoning. The whole point is to do away with Christ, his call for conversion and holiness, his teaching of moral and spiritual righteousness, and His claims as absolute Lord over every human soul and the whole life of man.
This is simply the logical fallacy of proof by assertion.


See Atheism and irrationality.
See also Confirmation bias.

Christian apologetics answers this skepticism about Paul. See the following articles:
Christian apologetical literature surprisingly does not point in support of its argument to the historical fact that the Christian leadership of the first 2 centuries of Christianity does not denounce Paul as a heretic or corrupter of the Gospel Jesus preached. The only objections raised against his preaching appear in the Book of Acts by the circumcision party of the Christian Pharisees, and the arguments against his message there are rejected by the Council of Jerusalem. He wrote his epistles while most of the Apostles were still alive along with hundreds of witnesses to the words and deeds of Jesus himself (1 Corinthians 15:3-7), and not one of them wrote anything extant that denounces him as a teacher of false doctrines. The Book of Acts does not show the Apostles casting Paul out as a false teacher seeking to undermine their faith in the teaching they had received from the mouth of the Lord. Certainly we have no record that any of the Twelve Apostles wrote or spoke out against him. Moreover, not one of the first century writings rejected from inclusion in the canon of sacred Christian scriptures, the doubtful and the spurious and the outright heretical, attack Paul as a heretic or critique his works as promoting doctrine inimical to the pure Christian faith. His detractors even now do not cite anything from the first and second centuries as evidence that he was denounced by faithful believers in Jesus for changing the Gospel of Jesus into a new religion, or that Paul had invented the mythical doctrine of Christ. It is an unexpected peculiarity that Christian apologists of our own time do not also advert to this evidence from historical silence as part of their response to the charge that Paul invented or corrupted Christianity. It is only within and after the mid-second century that we find suggestions that Paul was not a true Christian or that he had distorted the teaching of Jesus, and these are from teachers (for example, the Ebionites) dismissed as heretics who had themselves radically, and demonstrably, departed from the traditional doctrine of the Apostles, whose movements died out while Christianity grew and finally flourished. See Argument from silence and Gnosticism; also Great Apostasy.

"the chief shepherds and leaders of the Assembly of the Lord, whom we are commanded by Christ and the scriptures to obey"

"The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice." Matthew 23:2-3
"He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me." Matthew 10:40
"And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of hell shall not prevail against it." Matthew 16:18
"If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Matthew 18:17-18
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the end of the world." Matthew 28:18-20
"...whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me." Mark 9:37b
"He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me." Luke 10:16
"And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you." John 14:16-17
"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth..." John 16:15a
"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment." Romans 13:1-2
"So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." 2 Corinthians 5:20
"that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places." Ephesians 3:10
"you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth." 1 Timothy 3:15b
"Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to give account. Let them do this joyfully, and not sadly, for that would be of no advantage to you." Hebrews 13:17
"You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, beware lest you be carried away with the error of lawless men and lose your own stability." 2 Peter 3:17
"Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come; therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out, that it might be plain that they all are not of us." 1 John 2:18-19
"Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy." Revelation 22:11

"There are many like these … [who] lead astray ignorant and unstable persons out of the light of Christ into the dense darkness of their own errors, lies and falsehoods, even unto death, distorting the scriptures to their own destruction."

Text redacted and adapted from 2 Peter 3:16.
For example the several heretics and apostates already cited here, also Marcion and those who came after him, appealing to the scriptures as "divine authorization" in specious support of their false interpretations of the Bible, to lead ignorant Christians away from the truth.
See Antinomianism, Heresy, Gnosticism, Syncretism, Apocrypha and Apostasy.

"According to Tertullian the Apostle John was plunged into boiling oil and emerged unhurt, and thence remitted to his island exile.

Tertullian, On the Prescription of Heretics, —Chapter XXXVI. The Apostolic Churches the Voice of the Apostles. Let the Heretics Examine Their Apostolic Claims, in Each Case, Indisputable. The Church of Rome Doubly Apostolic; Its Early Eminence and Excellence. Heresy, as Perverting the Truth, Is Connected Therewith.

"many believe he wrote the book of Revelation around 95 A.D. in the last year of Domitian's reign."

See Revelation, Book of (historical exegesis).

"The book of the Apocalypse was written in the midst of this storm, when many of the Christians had already perished and more were to follow them"

See
St. Irenæus, Against Heresies, Book V, chapter 28 (Adv. Hæres., V, xxviii) (newadvent.org)
St. Irenæus, Against Heresies, Book V, chapter 29 (Adv. Hæres., V, xxix) (newadvent.org)
St. Irenæus, Against Heresies, Book V, chapter 30 (Adv. Hæres., V, xxx) (newadvent.org)
See also the whole work:
Against Heresies (newadvent.org) Table of Contents Chapter Index, with links.
See St. Irenaeus.

"Rome, 'the great Babylon', 'was drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus'"

See commentaries on
Revelation 17:5,
Revelation 17:6;
Revelation 2:10,
Revelation 2:13;
Revelation 6:11;
Revelation 13:15;
Revelation 20:4.
"drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." This is not an image of pleasurable intoxication, of an unrestrained delight in killing the righteous as entertainment, although that is not an unreasonable interpretation, but rather an image of divine condemnation to irrevocable destruction for an unrestricted indulgence in violence and corrupt wickedness as found in the Old Testament:
Isaiah 51:17, 21-23;
Jeremiah 25:15-29;
Ezekiel 23:31-35;
Habakkuk 2:15-17;
Zechariah 12;
Revelation 14:19-20,
Revelation 16:3-7,
Revelation 17:4-6,
Revelation 18:24,
Revelation 19:1-2;
John 6:53-57.


REVELATION - THE APOCALYPSE

"which he sent and made known by his messenger to his servant"

Revelation 1:1
"messenger" here is the literal meaning of the Greek αγγλος agglos pronounced anglos, "angel". Their nature is spirit, their office is angel, "messenger". Throughout this text of the Revelation "angel" is also rendered by directly equivalent dynamic translation using synonymous terms:
  • "angel"
  • "messenger"
  • "messenger of heaven"
  • "ambassador"
  • "ambassador of heaven"

"Blessed is he who reads aloud to the Assembly"

Revelation 1:3
The Greek word here is αναγιγνώσκων anagignoskon, literally "read", but meaning more precisely "read publicly": see interlinear text of Revelation 1:3.
The literal sense of Scripture in the context of both the cultural expression of the time and the New Testament itself regarding the reading of prophetic documents clearly indicates the public reading of this scripture to a gathering of people, in this case the Christian congregation gathered for worship and the hearing of the word of God.
Compare multiple versions of Revelation 1:3 and commentaries.
See Anagignoskomena
See also Jeremiah 36:1-21.
"Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand. Revelation 1:3 (KJV).
See Luke 2:19 and 2:51, "But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart...and his mother kept all these things in her heart."
—"repent, and do the works you did at first" … "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches." 2:5, 7 (let him be warned).
—"Be faithful unto death" … "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches." 2:10-11 (let him be warned).
—"So you also have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent then." … "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches." 2:15-17 (let him be warned).
—"only hold fast what you have until I come" … "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches." 2:25, 29 (let him be warned).
—"Awake, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death" … "Remember what you received and heard; keep that, and repent" … "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches." 3:2-3, 6 (let him be warned).
—"hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown" … "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches." 3:11, 13 (let him be warned).
—"be zealous and repent" … "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches." 2:10-11 (let him be warned).
—"keep the commandments of God and bear witness to Jesus" 12:17.
—"let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast" 13:18.
—"Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." 14:12.
—"Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues" 18:4.
—"Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great" 19:5.
—"Worship God" 19:10.
—"He who conquers shall have this heritage" 21:7.
—"those who keep the words of this book. Worship God." 22:9.
—"Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy." 22:11 (Let them go; you yourselves must remain true to God.)
—"Blessed are 'those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates." 22:14 (See 2 Peter 1:9; Revelation 19:8; Acts 22:16; Ephesians 5:25-27; 1 Peter 3:21).
—"The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come'. And let him who hears say, 'Come'. And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price." 22:17 (KJV "whosoever will").
This verse has been cited as against the doctrine of Calvinism that men have not free will to choose what is right.
Luther: —"Again, they are to be blessed who keep what is written therein; and yet no one knows what that is, to say nothing of keeping it." —The Works of Martin Luther Volume Six (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1932), p. 488-489 - Martin Luther's Preface to the Revelation of St. John. (boldface emphasis added)

"John to the seven churches in Asia"

Revelation 1:4.
The Seven Churches of Asia map
Patmos: map and commentary
Ephesus: map and commentary
Smyrna: map and commentary
Pergamum: map and commentary
Thyatira: map and commentary
Sardis: map and commentary
Philadelphia: map and commentary
Laodicea: map and commentary

"and from the seven spirits who are before his throne"

Revelation 1:4
An allusion to the Septuagint text, Tobit 12:15.
"seven spirits" (not capitalized). This is not a typographical error.
The most ancient copies of the Greek text of the Scriptures of the New Testament do not employ signifying capital letters, special "upper case" spellings, but are entirely written with uncial or miniscule capital letters, no "lower case" spellings. See the following articles:
Because the text of the Book of Revelation is written entirely in capital letters, in uncials and in miniscules, in the earliest extant manuscript copies, biblical exegetes differ in their interpretation of the meaning of the seven spirits of God. The signifying capitalizations appearing in various multiple Bible translations and versions are entirely an interpretive editorial judgment by more recent translators, copyists, publishers and printers. (See Historical-critical method (Higher criticism).)
Some are persuaded that seven powerful archangelic ministers, such as Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, along with four others not named in the Bible, are the meaning of this text. See Tobit 12:15 and Luke 1:19. Compare "seven angels" in Revelation 8:2-6; 15:1; 15:7–16:1; 17:1.
Others are persuaded that there is only one archangel: Michael. The Bible speaks only of "the archangel" in two passages: 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and Jude 9 (literally, "the chief angel" / "the leading angel" / "the superior angel" / "the supreme angel"). Only the singular forms άρχαγγέλου archangelou and άρχαγγέλος archangelos appear; the plural άρχαγγέλοι archangeloi "archangels" is not found anywhere in the Bible. Evangelical and Fundamentalist Protestant apologists in asserting the exegetical principle of sola scriptura hold that this is an example of Orthodox and Catholic pagan corruption of Biblical teaching in saying there are seven archangels, when the Bible clearly says there is only one.
Catholic and Orthodox apologists assert that such an interpretation is clearly against a traditionally held constant Christian doctrine evidentially traceable to the first and second centuries of Christianity from the time of the apostles, and found in the apocryphal books of Enoch, 4 Ezra (2 Esdras), and in rabbinical literature preceding the time of Jesus. This doctrine has not been dogmatically defined as necessary for Christian belief, but the content of the sacred scriptures of the books of the Bible with all their parts as the inerrant word of God has been defined as dogma since the Council of Trent.
See multiple commentaries on Colossians 2:18 "worshipping of angels". Compare Kabbalah and Gnosticism.
Some biblical exegetes are fully persuaded that the Divine Person of the Holy Spirit Himself, having "sevenfold dignity" and "sevenfold power", the fullness of spiritual sovereignty and might and divinity, is the meaning of this text. This is based on the semitic and biblical interpretation of the symbolic significance of the number seven.
What are the seven spirits of God? (letusreason.org)
The image in 4:5, "before the throne burn seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God", parallels the "seraphim" (lit. "burning ones") of Isaiah 6:2, and the single seven-branched "candlestick / lampstand" in the Tabernacle before the Veil in Exodus 25:31-40, "according to the pattern" shown to Moses on the mountain, Hebrews 8:5. The one lampstand has seven lamps.
(Some read 22 lamps: three lamps, cups, for each of the six branches, eighteen, and the four lamps, cups, for the center of the lampstand itself, totaling twenty-two, Exodus 25:33-34, a number which corresponds to the number of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, supposed to have mystical symbolic significance, especially in Qabalistic teachings.)
Where the phrase "seven spirits" ΈΠΤΆ ΠΝΕΥΜΆΤΩΝ epta pneumaton appears in the earliest manuscripts of ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ APOKALUPSIS IOANNOU The Revelation of John, the word ΠΝΕΥΜΆΤΩΝ PNEUMATON "spirits" is not especially capitalized. In modern printed texts of the Greek Bible the term πνευμάτων pneumaton "spirits" is also not especially capitalized. Here in this Harmony of the Gospel it is also not capitalized, solely as a reminder of the alternate possible interpretations of meaning, just as it is not capitalized in the Greek text.
Revelation 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6; 8:2; 15:1; 21:9.
(Compare Ezekiel 9.)
See The Revelation of John, part of The Holy Bible The Ancient Greek Text, alternating verse by verse with A new English translation from the Greek by David Robert Palmer with translator's footnotes and Greek textual variant footnotes (bibletranslation.ws)
In the year 1040, St. Celias made an exhaustive study of the approved writings of the Early Church Fathers up to the 4th Century before the Council of Nicaea. Through his studies we have come to know seven of the names of the Archangels. He says the traditional names of the seven holy archangels who stand in the presence of God are these:
Michael,
Gabriel,
Raphael,
Uriel,
Jehudiel,
Sealtiel (Shealtiel)
and Barachiel.
(The name of Shealtiel appears in the Bible in
Matthew 1:12; 1 Chronicles 3:17; Ezra 3:2, 8; 5:2; Nehemiah 12:1; Habakkuk 1:12-14; 2:2, 23.)
See the following articles:
To reiterate: The word "archangel" appears only twice in the Bible, and only in the singular form:
1 Thessalonians 4:16 and Jude 9.
See Strong's number 743: άρχάγγελος "chief angel".
On this basis some exegetes argue that the Bible teaches that there is only one archangel, and that those who designate seven archangels in accordance with ancient Christian tradition beginning with the 1st and 2nd century are in error and do not accept the authority of the word of God, following instead the doctrines of devils, perverting the faith, and compromising the truth by a process of syncretism with paganism.
See the following relevant Bible texts:
2 Thessalonians 2:15;
Galatians 1:9;
1 Timothy 4:1;
2 Timothy 4:3;
2 Peter 2:4-11;
1 John 2:18-19;
Jude 8 —"these...reject authority, and revile the glorious ones" ("speak evil of dignities")
Jude 16-19 —"they who cause divisions".
See the following articles:

"Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, including those who pierced him. All the tribes of the earth will mourn over him."

Revelation 1:7
Compare Daniel 7:13; Matthew 24:30; Mark 14:62; John 19:32-37; Zechariah 12:10

"I am the first and the last, and the Living one."

Revelation 1:17-18.
The "Living One": a reference both to Himself as the Living God, and to the fact that He is alive and will never die again. Romans 6:9. See
Deuteronomy 5:26;
Joshua 3:10;
1 Samuel 17:26, 36;
2 Kings 19:4, 16;
Psalms 42:2; 84:2;
Isaiah 37:4, 17;
Jeremiah 10:10;
Daniel 6:20, 26; 14:5;
Hosea 1:10;
Matthew 16:16; 26:63;
John 1:1-4; 6:51, 57, 69;
Acts 14:15;
Romans 6:9; 9:26;
1 Corinthians 15:45;
2 Corinthians 3:3; 6:16;
1 Thessalonians 1:9;
1 Timothy 3:15; 4:10; 6:17;
Hebrews 3:12; 7:25; 9:14; 10:31; 12:22;
1 Peter 1:23; 2:4;
Revelation 1:17-18; 4:9-10; 5:14; 7:2; 10:6; 15:7.
The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas 1:1 says, "These are the secret words which the Living Jesus spoke", which many exegetes interpret as meaning that the author intends that the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas are to be taken as the words that the resurrected Jesus spoke to his followers, during the forty days that he was still with them and spoke about the kingdom of God.
Mark 16:14, 19;
Acts 1:3;
1 John 1:1-2 with Luke 24:39.

"and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever more. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades."

Revelation 1:18
An allusion to the Septuagint text, Wisdom 16:13.

"He who has the sharp two-edged sword"

Revelation 2:12
An allusion to the Septuagint text, Wisdom 18:16.

"in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you"

Revelation 2:13

"Behold, there was a throne set in heaven, and one sitting on the throne that looked like a jasper stone and a sardius."

Revelation 4:2-3
Compare Ezekiel 1:26-28; Exodus 24:9-11; Deuteronomy 32:4; 2 Samuel 23:3
Semiprecious jasper is flesh-colored, brown, tan, pink-tan. Semiprecious sardius is blood red. The image is one of jewel-like polished stone of great beauty, but living flesh and blood.

"On the thrones were twenty-four Presbyters sitting"

Revelation 4:4.
The Greek word here is the plural form πρεσβυτέρους presbuterous, from the singular form πρεσβύτερος, the root word for the English words "priest" and "presbyter".
See Online Etymology Dictionary: "priest" (etymonline.com).
In the Old Testament sense, priest and presbyter is a translation of Hebrew kohen, Greek hiereus, Latin sacerdos, from which we have the word "sacramental".
See the interlinear text.
The Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible here in Revelation 4:4 says, "ancients". The Protestant King James Version says, "elders", here and throughout the KJV New Testament. Compare multiple versions of Revelation 4:4. Elsewhere in the Douay-Rheims New Testament this word is rendered "priests".
See Strong's number 4245 πρεσβύτερος prěsbutěrŏs
Throughout this Harmony of the Gospel (Conservative Version) the words of the Greek text πρεσβύτεροι and πρεσβυτέρους and πρεσβύτερος have been translated as "presbyters" and "presbyter".

"No one in heaven above, or on the earth, or under the earth, was able to open the book, or to look in it. And I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open the book, or to look in it. One of the Presbyters said to me, 'Do not weep. Behold, the Lion who is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome; he opens the book and its seven seals.' "

Revelation 5:3-5
Compare Isaiah 29:10-12; 2 Corinthians 3:12-16

"Priests—Hiereis"

Revelation 5:6
The Greek word here denotes those consecrated servants of God who offer up the victim of sacrifice at the altar of God, not metaphorically, but actually, in ordained ritual service of worship. The word hiereis "priests" is distinctly different from the word presbyteroi "presbyters, elders".
See interlinear text of Revelation 1:6.
See also
multiple versions of Revelation 1:6
multiple commentaries on Revelation 1:6.
Compare Romans 15:16 hierourgounta "priestly service" (RSVCE) "ministering" (KJV).
See especially Strong's number 2418 hierourgeo.
The Greek prefix here hier-, hiero- literally denotes whatever has to do with a consecrated priesthood and the ritual offering up of sacrifices of worship, specifically a sacrificial victim. The New Testament Greek text is rendered into English according to the particular Catholic/Orthodox or Protestant doctrine of the translator/s.
See "Hierophant" (britannica.com).
See also the following:
Protestant apologists cite against the repeated offering of the Mass, Hebrews 10:11-18 (KJV text):
"And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin."
And for this reason they say there is no need for a ministerial ordained priesthood offering sacrifices of Jesus with incense repeatedly at an altar to God. As it says in Isaiah 1:13:
"Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination to me."
Catholic apologists respond with the following texts:
"Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever."
"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?"
"A man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and outraged the Spirit of grace?"
"We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle."
"According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature." (John 6:53-58; 1 Corinthians 10:16; Hebrews 10:28-29; Hebrews 13:10; 2 Peter 1:3-4 KJV text)
Thus they say that Jesus provided for us Gentiles the sacrifice of worship in acknowledging and offering up and presenting his one unrepeatable sacrifice through the ministry of his priests and people gathered together with him and he in their midst from his throne in heaven showing and offering himself a pure offering continually to God the Father at the altar, from which we receive Jesus himself, his body, blood, soul and divinity, in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophesy of Malachi 1:11-12 (KJV text):
"For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of the LORD is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible."
The Greek words for minister, ministry, ministering, service, servant all have the prefix daikon- "deacon, deaconess, minister, servant".
A Priest (hieros) ordained to "priestly service" is involved in "service" to God and man.
But a Deacon (diakonos) "serving" as an ordained "Servant", involved in "service" to God and man, is not a priest. See Strong's numbers 1247, 1248, 1249: "diakoneo, diakonia, diakonos".
See Orthodox Mysteries and Catechesis.
Compare 1 Corinthians 4:1
"stewards of the mysteries of God".
See Christian mysteries.

"Then he came, and he took it out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne."

Revelation 5:7
An allusion to the Septuagint text, Sirach 1:8.

"and made us kings and priests to our God"

Revelation 5:10.
RSV "and made them a kingdom and priests to our God"
Literally, "kings and priests":
βασιλείαν καὶ ἱερεῖς basileian kai hiereis.
See interlinear text of Revelation 5:10.
See also multiple versions and commentaries.
This hiereis "priests" signifies more than presenting our bodies to God as a living sacrifice in praise and service with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Romans 12:1; Mark 12:30). The meaning of this Greek word also explicitly includes the meaning of the formal ritual of worship, of offering up sacrifice at an altar. This kingdom of priests hiereis has been established only after the Lamb has been slain, the lion of the tribe of Judah, Jesus. He alone has the right to open the book and break its seals.
Hiereis here in this text of Revelation is therefore not a reference to the former covenant of the Old Testament where God through Moses had made the people of Israel the prince of God a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6).
The word hiereis signifies instead the holy priesthood hierateuma (Strong's number 2406) of which St. Peter speaks in 1 Peter 2:5, 9-10, and the priesthood of St. Paul which he professes in Romans 15:16 "so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit". The Greek grammar of Romans 15:16 makes clear that it is not the Gentiles that Paul offers as an offering to God through Christ, it refers to the offering that the Gentiles themselves willingly offer to God ("oblation" in the Douay-Rheims Bible) as the body of Christ himself, and which Paul in his "priestly service" hierourgunta presents and makes acceptable and sanctifies by the Holy Spirit (Strong's number 2418 hierourgeo).
A word-study of the KJV "oblation" / "oblations" in the Old Testament and of the KJV "offering" in the New Testament is most useful here in the context of Romans 15:16 and Revelation 5:10.
See Strong's numbers 7133, 8641, 4503, 4864, and 4376, 4374.
See also biblehub.com Topical Bible "oblation" and "offering".
The King James translators carefully avoided the obvious priestly meaning of this word hierourgunta (from hierourgeo) in Romans 15:16 by rendering it as if it was "ministering" instead, a totally different word, as if the text read diakonian, diakonia, as in Romans 12:7 (Strong's number 1248 diakonia: service attendant, source of the word "deacon"). The two words hierourgunta and diakonian are not, and never were, synonyms in the Greek language of the first century. See Eisegesis.
All those Christian churches claiming apostolic succession and Holy Orders see this holy priesthood hierateuma as including a sacerdotal priesthood in Christ, an ordained and consecrated ministry of participating in his High Priestly ministry and High Priesthood, in which he, present at the altar as High Priest in the worship service, continually presents to the Father through the ministry of his ordained priests and lay people his one eternal sacrifice of himself, body, blood, soul and divinity in his one body the church, and gives himself as real food and drink to his people. They have an altar from which the priests of Aaron cannot eat, Jesus Christ. (John 6:52-59; Hebrews 3:1; 13:10; 1 Corinthians 11:23-32. Compare Leviticus 7; Genesis 14:18 and Hebrews 7:17; compare Malachi 1:11-12 and Hebrews 10:29.) See Transubstantiation.
Protestantism utterly rejects this interpretation. The Protestant Reformation saw the High Priest, Jesus himself, indwelling his redeemed people through the Holy Spirit as the one unrepeatable sacrifice to God the Father, continually offering the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name, by virtue of their common baptismal priesthood, "for all the congregation are holy" (Numbers 16:3; Hebrews 13:15; Exodus 22:31; 1 Corinthians 12; 1 Peter 1:15-16). The one true altar is Jesus Christ our Lord and his cross, and his sacrifice cannot be repeated. (John 1:29; Hebrews 7:26-27; 9:25-28. Compare Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Isaiah 1:10-17 with Romans 1:16-17; 10:5-17.) Protestant faith in Christ sees no need for priests hiereis who offer up repeatedly a solemn ritual sacrifice of Jesus at an altar in the worship of God for man's salvation, "seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame" (Numbers 16:3 KJV; Hebrews 6:4-8 KJV). See Sola fide.
While the need for hiereis, priests, is rejected, the Bible itself appears to affirm the establishment of a sacrificial Christian priesthood: according to the Greek text, and reading in accordance with the Reformation principle of sola scriptura, the Book of Revelation states that God has made us a Kingdom with Priests (Revelation 1:6; 5:10). To some observers this may be the main reason Martin Luther initially rejected the Book of Revelation, along with Hebrews, James and Jude; but this is not the only reason, as can be clearly seen in his commentaries on these books. See
Luther's treatment of the 'Disputed Books' of the New Testament (bible-researcher.com)
Works of Martin Luther - Prefaces to the Books of the Bible - 1522-1545 (godrules.net).
Orthodox and Catholic doctrine teaches that the "one, unique and unrepeatable sacrifice" of Jesus which he made in a bloody manner on the Cross, is made present by him in an unbloody manner in every time and place, and is presented to God on the altar by his body the Church in worship and acknowledgement of his one eternal sacrifice as the only atoning and redeeming sacrifice we have to offer to God, through the ministerial priesthood joined to Jesus the high priest at the altar of worship with the participation of the people of God in the one continuing eternal sacrifice of the Divine Liturgy and Holy Mass to the glory of his name (Malachi 1:11-12).
In this view the passage in Hebrews (6:4-8) is speaking of apostasy, literally the "falling away from" and rejection of Jesus Christ, in which the apostate by a complete rejection of Christianity has crucified Christ again for himself, herself, by counting the blood of his sacrifice an unholy thing, despised as worthless and irrelevant to him or her (Hebrews 10:28-29)—this is seen as especially applicable to those Reformers who in the 16th century first rejected the sacrifice of the Mass and Divine Liturgy of the orthodox catholic Church as pagan blasphemy and fell away from the truth of God by their heresy.
The same passage in Hebrews (6:4-8) is equally seen by the Reformation as especially applicable to the Catholic Church as a whore that through the adulterous fornication of syncretism with paganism and superstition committed a Great Apostasy in falling away from the Gospel of Christ in the Bible, and especially, by the repeated offering of the sacrifice of the Mass and the Divine Liturgy, "seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame" (Hebrews 6:6 KJV).
Compare Isaiah 5:20-21 and Proverbs 18:1-3.

"I saw that the Lamb opened one of the seven seals...When he opened the second seal...When he opened the third seal...When he opened the fourth seal...Authority over one fourth of the earth, to kill with the sword, with famine, with death, and by the wild animals of the earth was given to them."

Revelation 6:1-8
Compare Jeremiah 15:2-3; 27:5-8; Ezekiel 14:12-21

"When he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been killed for the word of God...“How long, O Sovereign Lord...?” ...They were told that they should rest, waiting while their fellow servants and their brothers, who would also be killed even as they were, should complete their course."

Revelation 6:9-11
Compare Genesis 4:10; Psalm 79:1-5 and 79:10-12; Isaiah 6:11-13; 51:17-23

"I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood. The stars of the sky fell to the earth, like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when it is shaken by a great wind. The sky was removed like a scroll when it is rolled up. "

Revelation 6:12-14a
Compare Amos 1:1; Joel 2:31; Isaiah 34:1-4; Nahum 3:12

"Every mountain and island were moved out of their places. The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains. They cried out to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath has come; and who is able to stand?”

Revelation 6:14b-17
Compare Esther 8:11–9:5 (the face of the Persian king Ahasuerus and the wrath of Mordecai); Isaiah 2:10-19; Hosea 10:8; Amos 9:1-4; Malachi 3:2
See interlinear text of Revelation 6:16 άρνίου arniou "lamb".
Compare Isaiah 11:6 and Esther 9:4.
The Hebrew word כֶּ֔בֶשׂ ke·ḇeś "lamb", also includes the connotation of battering ram, and is a male sheep of first year of age, old enough to butt, from a root word that means "to dominate". See Strong's number 3532.
See also Revelation, Book of (historical exegesis): Seal six: the Fall of Jerusalem, Exile, Cyrus the Persian, and Return for interpretation of the lamb as the newly appointed Jewish prime minister Mordecai (first year in authority), with the king of Persia as the one on the throne, and those who fled from them, as being the enemies of the Jews, suddenly themselves decreed for destruction by the Jews in self-defense, according to the decree of Mordecai and the king Ahasuerus. See Preterism.
The ordinary Christian reader limits the word "Lamb" to Jesus the Son of God, and sees this passage as signifying the authority of Jesus over the world as King of kings and Lord of lords and judge of all the peoples of the earth. See Matthew 25:31-46.

"behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of all tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands."

Revelation 7:9
Compare Nehemiah 8:15-17

"My lord, you know"

Revelation 7:14
It seems strange that the elder/presbyter here does not rebuke John for calling him "my lord". The Greek words are Kyrie mou Κύριέ μου "Lord of me", "my lord/God". There is only one Lord. God Alone. Look at κύριος "God, Lord, master, Sir".
In Revelation 22:8 John fell down to worship at the feet of the angel. The angel said to him "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brethren the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God."
Colossians 2:18 says, "Let no one disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels." So Revelation 7:14 really seems like saint worship. John calls the elder "lord" but the elder does not correct him! Catholics worship saints, but they say it isn't idolatry. Every born-again evangelical Protestant Christian condemns saint worship as idolatry, because it's against the Bible. It's against the Ten Commandments! (Exodus 20:3-5; compare 1 Corinthians 8:4-6)
Look at the different Bible versions of Revelation 7:14 and the different Bible commentaries on Revelation 7:14. Take a look at the interlinear Greek text of Revelation 7:14.
Compare this article Communion of the Saints - About Catholics (aboutcatholics.com), and the Conservapedia article Intercession.
The Topical Bible article on Worship says that worship can mean deep respect for someone or something without necessarily meaning the worship of God. It includes a listing of Bible verses with the words for worship in context.
Look at the meanings of the Greek words translated "worship" in the KJV Gospels.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia article "Christian worship" there are different degrees of worship, so that "proper" worship, out of deep respect, offered to someone or something that is not God, is not necessarily idolatry.
Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians firmly maintain that worship is worship, and that it has only one meaning, and they teach and are taught that worship is the reverence, honor, devotion, service and prayer that belongs only to God alone, and to give or offer any kind of worship or prayer or devotion in any degree whatever in any way to anyone or anything other than to God alone is idolatry, pure and simple, and is a sin grievously offensive to God, and that it merits his righteous and holy wrath, and in the final Judgment irrevocable condemnation to the everlasting torment of the fires of hell forever together with the Devil and his angels. Revelation 14:9-12; 19:20; 20:7-10, 13-15; 2 Thessalonians 1:8-10.

"These are those who came out of the great affliction of distress. They washed their robes, and made them white in the Lamb’s blood."

Revelation 7:14
Compare Nehemiah 8:17; Ezra 2:1; Ezra 3; Ezra 6:19-22.
Pretribulation theology points to Revelation 7:9-17 as a prophecy of the Rapture found also in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. See End Times.
Critics point out that Paul clearly states in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 that "the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them", and that in Revelation the "first resurrection of the dead" is found in Revelation 20:5, after the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven bowls of the wrath of God, only after the Great Tribulation. In response, Pretribulation believers confidently answer that the vision of the events in the Book of Revelation are not presented to John in chronological order. However, in response to this explanation of 7:9-17 as being a vision of the "first resurrection and rapture of the redeemed from the earth before the Great Tribulation", in responding from the position of sola scriptura, and neither adding to nor subtracting from "the words of the book of this prophesy", conservative Bible scholars simply point out that the text of the Book of Revelation directly presents each vision one after the other without indicating that the sequence of the visions presented to John is not chronological: "After this I looked...After this I saw...Then I saw...Then he showed me...". The firm assertion that the visions of the Revelation are not presented in chronological sequence is presented by critics of this position as an eisegetical interpretation imposed on the text extra-biblically ("from the traditions of men") as a means of support for the doctrine first proposed by John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren in the 19th century that true believers will not be made to pass through the Great Tribulation but will be "redeemed from the earth", "before the great and terrible day of the Lord"—"These are they which came out of great tribulation" (KJV). This last phrase (Revelation 7:14) is interpreted to mean "rescued from the great tribulation", and understood to mean, "kept from experiencing the great tribulation". See the interlinear text of Revelation 7:14.
An historical exegesis of Revelation, taking each part of the vision of John as corresponding one-to-one each to an event in the history of salvation in the Bible, sees 7:9-18 as the return of the sons of Israel to Jerusalem after the end of the Babylonian exile under Cyrus the Great and gathered round the restored altar in the seventh month of the first year, and in the second month of the second year with the laying of the foundation of the temple of the LORD (Ezra 3).
The majority of Christian readers of Revelation see 7:9-17 as a vision of the souls of Christian believers who have died in Christ and are safely consoled in heaven, and rejoicing in their salvation from the terrible evils of a sinful world, in the interval before the time of the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment at the end of time.

"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

Revelation 7:17b
Compare Nehemiah 8 and Revelation 7:13-17.

"Another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer. Much incense was given to him, that he should add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. The smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the messenger’s hand."

Revelation 8:3-4
An allusion to the Septuagint text, Tobit 12:12, 15.

"The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, ... and all green grass was burnt up."

Revelation 8:7
An allusion to the Septuagint text, Wisdom 16:22 and Sirach 39:29.

"Then out of the smoke came locusts on the earth, and power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power."

Revelation 9:3
An allusion to the Septuagint text, Wisdom 16:9.

"They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is 'Abaddon', but in Greek, he has the name 'Apollyon'."

Revelation 9:11
The Greek word αγγλος agglos Angel means "messenger". This angel is the "Messenger of death"—"angel of the abyss".
"A-poll-yon" can be seen as a paronomasia or word play on the name "Apollonius"
(pronounced Ap-o-LON-yus
—"a-POLL-yon / ap-'LON-yus")
himself a messenger of death.
Compare 2 Maccabees 4:4 and 4:21-22; 2 Maccabees 5:24-26; 1 Maccabees 3:10-12;
and 2 Maccabees 12:2; 1 Maccabees 10:69-85.
The ordinary Christian reader sees in Apollyon the destroyer of Exodus 12:23 and possibly the angel in 2 Samuel 24:16 and the angel of the LORD in 2 Kings 19:35, but this interpretation is uncertain and occasionally disputed.
See article: ABADDON (Jewish Encyclopedia): Wikis: Bible Wikis (thefullwiki.org)

" 'Free the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates!' The four messengers were freed who had been prepared for that hour and day and month and year, so that they might kill one third of mankind."

Revelation 9:15
Compare 1 Maccabees 3:38-39
Lysias, Ptolemy, Nicanor, and Gorgias.
(See 1 Maccabees 3:27-41 and 6:28-30; 6:40-41. Forty thousand infantry, seven thousand cavalry, and forces from Syria and the land of the Philistines; mercenary forces from other kingdoms and from islands of the seas, a hundred thousand foot soldiers, twenty thousand horsemen, and thirty-two elephants; all who heard the noise trembled.)
The Old Testament prophets often (not always) characterize the people of God who belong to his covenant, both the righteous and the unrighteous, as human (mankind, descendants of Israel, Judah), and the pagan nations and peoples, especially their commanders and invading and pillaging armies, as beasts and predators like lions and wolves and bears and bulls with horns, bloodthirsty creatures with teeth like spears and swords.

"For their tails are like serpents, and have heads, and with them they harm."

Revelation 9:19b
Compare Isaiah 9:15-16

"When he cried, the seven thunders uttered their voices."

Revelation 10:3
Eleazar and the seven Maccabean martyrs.
Compare 2 Maccabees 6:18–7:41; Mark 3:17

"I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lamp stands, standing before the Lord of the earth."

Revelation 11:3-4 —"a thousand two hundred and threescore days" KJV
One thousand two hundred sixty days was the period of struggle of the Maccabees to regain and purify the temple; also the period that Antiochus IV Epiphanes warred against Judea, from his issuing of the decree prohibiting Judaism until his death.
Compare Zechariah 4:11-14; 1 Maccabees 5:24 and 5:61-64; 1 Maccabees 3:37 and 7:1.
See the history related in 1 Maccabees 1:41–6:17.
Compare Daniel 12:11 "a thousand two hundred and ninety days" KJV.

"When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them."

Revelation 11:7
Compare 1 Maccabees 9:17-18 and 13:23-26; Isaiah 27:1; Daniel 7:2-3.
Compare Revelation 11:3-10 and 1 Maccabees 3:1–9:18; 9:19–13:53

"After the three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood on their feet. Great fear fell on those who saw them. I heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” They went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies saw them"

Revelation 11:11-12
Compare 1 Maccabees 13:7 and 27-29.
(See 1 Maccabees 12:53–13:29.)

"The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of his Anointed. He will reign forever and ever!"

Revelation 11:15
KJV—"The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever."
The Greek word Χριστος Christos, "Christ" means "Anointed", and in the Old Testament of the Greek Bible the word Christ designates prophets, priests, and kings as the translation of מְשִׁיח Meshiach "Messiah" (see Isaiah 45:1-6).
The interlinear text of Isaiah 45:1 designates Cyrus as God's Anointed מְשִׁיח Meshiach "Messiah"
כֹּה־ אָמַ֣ר יְהוָה֮ לִמְשִׁיחוֹ֮ לִמְשִׁיחוֹ֮.
Compare the interlinear texts of 2 Samuel 5:3 and 1 Samuel 26:11.
The equivalent Greek word is Χριστος Christos "Christ". It is implicitly applied here to the Jewish high priest as ruler and governor of the independent nation of Judea, c. 141–63 B.C., as the kingdom (ethnarchy) of Our Lord and of his Anointed. (See Pompey.)
The high priests of the Jews were Anointed according to the law of Moses (Exodus 28:41, 43) "a perpetual statute for him and for his descendants after him." The Greek text of 1 Maccabees designates as (anointed) high priests Jonathan (10:20-21), Simon (13:42), and John the son of Simon (16:23-34).
Compare 1 Maccabees 13:41 and 16:23-24
See 1 Maccabees 13:41–16:24; Sirach 50:1-21
See also Theocracy.
The ordinary Christian reader normally limits the word "Christ" to Jesus the Son of God, and sees this passage (Revelation 11:15) as proclaiming the triumphant victory of Jesus over the world as King of kings and Lord of lords.

"And the Temple of God was opened in heaven. Inside His Temple the Ark of the Covenant was seen. Lightnings, voices, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail occurred."

Revelation 11:19
An allusion to the Septuagint text, 2 Maccabees 2:7.

"The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world."

Revelation 12:9a
Compare Luke 10:18 and John 12:31. (See Luke 10:1-20 and Isaiah 14:12-19).

"144,000"

Revelation 14:1
The literal meaning of this text is that these 12,000 from out of each of the twelve tribes of Israel are strictly descendants of the tribes of Israel, Jews and descendants of Jewish bloodlines who have become Christians. Descendants of Gentiles are absolutely excluded. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that only 144,000 people will go to heaven. God chooses these 144,000 individuals—the process began with the first century Christians and was completed in the year 1935. None of the documented elite is a documented and proven descendant of Jewish ancestry, none has been or is a direct convert from Judaism to the ranks of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Many of these 144,000 are documented as individuals who were married, yet Revelation 14:4 says, "These are those who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins" (KJV "chaste"). All others among the thousands of Witnesses converted after 1935 will be blessed in a paradise on earth after the final judgment. See the following detailed statistical and scriptural analysis debunking the claims of The Watchtower interpretation of the 144,000 by a ministry dedicated to saving members of the Jehovah's Witnesses from their errors.

"A loud voice came out of the Temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” There were lightnings, sounds, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since there were men on the earth, so great an earthquake, so mighty."

Revelation 16:17-18
Compare John 2:19-21; 19:30; Matthew 27:51-52

"Great hailstones, about the weight of a talent, came down out of the sky on people. People blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, for this plague was exceedingly severe."

Revelation 16:21
Compare Josephus Wars:
5.6.3 [270-273] "Great hailstones..."
5.9.4–5.10.5 [401-445] "How much more impious are you...It is therefore impossible to go distinctly over every instance of these men's iniquity."
The Works of Flavius Josephus William Whiston, Translator, 1737 (sacred-texts.com)—Book V

"These will war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings, and those who are with him are called, chosen, and faithful."

Revelation 17:14
An allusion to the Septuagint text,
2 Maccabees 13:4 and Wisdom 16:24.

"After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, 'Hallelujah! Salvation, power, and glory belong to our God'"

Revelation 19:1
An allusion to the Septuagint text, Tobit 13:18.

"On his robe and on his thigh was a name written: 'King of kings, and Lord of lords.'"

Revelation 19:16
An allusion to the Septuagint text,
2 Maccabees 13:4 and 2 Maccabees 7:9.


REVELATION: Additional resources:

Conservapedia articles: Book of Revelation

Apocalypse: Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Apocalypse of John (the Book of Revelation) (newadvent.org)

Book of Revelation: Orthodox article on the Book of Revelation (orthodoxwiki.org)

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ Through the Ages": Futurist encyclopedic introduction to the Book of Revelation (thepropheticyears.com)
the same editorial source also features a link to
Index: Book of Revelation a futurist biblical commentary chapter by chapter (thepropheticyears.com).

Revelation: Shedding new light on the Book of Revelation and the end of the age: Preterist Bible Commentary: Preterism, Preterist Theology and the Preterist view of Eschatology is the Christian Belief that All End Time Prophesies Have Been Fulfilled (revelationrevolution.org)

Book of Revelation with notes: USCCB Catholic Bible NABRE (usccb.org)

Coptic Orthodox Bible Commentary: downloadable commentaries from Saint Mina Coptic Orthodox Church Bible Commentary Books — Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (stminahamilton.ca)

Book of Revelation with notes: Fundamentalist Scofield Reference Bible (1917 Edition) (biblestudytools.com)

Book of Revelation multiple commentaries verse by verse (biblehub.com)

Book of Revelation: NIV Studies in Revelation: A commentary on the Book of Revelation (bible.org)

Book of Revelation: Revelation Commentary: The Revelation About Jesus Christ: A Dynamic Commentary: Premillenial/Prewrath in Perspective (revelationcommentary.org)

Jerusalem; Rome; Revelation: John's Apocalypse Written Before 70 A.D., by Rev. Professor-Emeritus Dr. Francis Nigel Lee, Chairman of the Departments of Systematic Theology and Church History, Queensland Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Brisbane, Australia (preteristarchive.com) pdf
An excellently reasoned representation of the Preterist view.

Preterist Commentary on the Book of Revelation (revelationrevolution.org):

Revelation 6: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 7: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 8: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 9: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 10: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 11: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 12: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 13: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 14: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 15: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 16: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 17: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 18: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 19: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 20: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 21: A Preterist Commentary
Revelation 22: A Preterist Commentary

Partial-Preterism: The doctrinal view that the Second Coming of Christ, the Resurrection of the Dead, and the Last Judgment are still to come.

The Early Church Fathers: No Preterist Resurrection, by Ed Tarkowski (Post-Tribulationist)
this author argues that notable early proponents of Partial-Preterism include Papias [70-155], Polycarp of Smyrna [70-156], Justin Martyr [100-165], Irenaeus of Lyons [130-202], Tatian [150], Saint Methodius [311], and John Chrysostom [347-407]).
A Partial-Preterist Perspective of the Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD, by Adam Maarschalk
this author argues that not all events in Revelation were fulfilled in the first century, that the Second Coming, the Parousia, has not yet occurred (notable proponents of Partial-Preterism include John Wesley, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, R.C. Sproul, David Chilton, Kenneth Gentry, Gary DeMar, and Hank Hanegraff).
Orthodoxy
Catholicism


"Gog and Magog"

Revelation 20:8
Understood by biblical scholars with deep knowledge of the history of the Middle East and the historical allusions in the Bible to be archetypal imagery of the forces of the Antichrist throughout history and especially anticipated as gathering in force against the people of God at the end of time, drawn from the history of Gyges, king of Lydia, and the armies of Media, known for their cruelty at the time of the prophesy of Ezekiel.
See Debunking the Russia/War of Gog and Magog Myth (newscientificevidenceforgod.com).
See Historical-critical method (Higher criticism).

"The Lord who is God of the spirits of the prophets sent his angel"

Revelation 22:6
Compare Revelation 1:1.
The statement in Revelation 22:6 taken together with the opening statement of the book in chapter 1 verse 1 apparently represents the Lord Jesus Christ as the God of the spirits of the prophets.

"The wall was constructed of jasper. The city was pure gold, like pure glass. ... The street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.

Revelation 21:18-21
An allusion to the Septuagint text, Tobit 13:16-17.

"The nations will walk by its light. The kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it ... for there will be no night there; and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it, their wealth."

Revelation 21:24-26
An allusion to the Septuagint text, Tobit 13:11.
See multiple commentaries on Revelation 21:24 and Revelation 21:26.
Partial-preterist and preterist interpretation sees this particular passage as a prophesy of the vast wealth and honor bestowed on Roman Catholic and Byzantine and Russian Orthodox cathedrals, basilicas, churches, monasteries and shrines in Europe and England, North Africa, and the Middle East throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Ostentatious displays of wealth in religion as a way for rulers of nations to beautify houses of worship in what was seen as a legitimate means of sacrifice in honor and praise of God and to testify to His Glory before all peoples, as in imitation of Solomon's Temple, have been soundly criticized by many Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant theologians as a betrayal of Gospel simplicity and poverty and an affront to God, "Father of the poor, and orphans and widows in their affliction", as a violation of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, especially with regard to the needs of the poor. See Five Solasespecially Soli Deo gloria "to the glory of God alone" .
See 100 Bible verses on Widows and Orphans (openbible.info)
See also Exodus 24–31; 1 Kings 6–7; 1 Chronicles 28–29; 2 Chronicles 3–5; Exodus 40:34-35; 1 Kings 8:10-11; 2 Chronicles 20:21; Tobit 13:11-18; Ezra 7:27;Job 40:6-12; Psalm 27:4; Isaiah 2:1-5 and Isaiah 60:10-14 and Isaiah 66:12-14; Haggai; Zechariah 14:16-21; Malachi 1:11; Acts 2:43-47; Acts 3:2; Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Peter 2:4-10; Hebrews 12:18-24; John 12:1-8; Luke 22:29-30; Revelation 20:4-6; Revelation 21:24-26.
See Religious Persecution during the 16th Century Protestant Reformation, Donald F. McNiell (christcommunitystudycenter.org) An outstanding scholarly article on Catholic and Protestant corruption and wealth on both sides in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period.

"Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book"

Revelation 22:7b
Shown here not in quotation marks, as the remark of the writer himself.
The text is drawn from Revelation 22:7b
Compare Revelation 1:3.
Biblical exegetes are divided on whether Jesus is the speaker of the words in chapter 22, the second half of verse 7.
(1) Those editors who believe Jesus is the speaker, include the blessing statement in 22:6b with the words in the first half of the next verse, "Behold, I am coming soon" 22:7a, enclosing both together in one set of quotation marks.
(2) Those who believe that John himself is reiterating the statement of blessing first made in the book in 1:3 do not include it within the quotation marks. Here in the text of this Harmony of the Gospel the sentence "Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book" is not enclosed in quotation marks, representing the sentence as being a statement by John himself, instead of being spoken by the angel or by the Lord Jesus.
(3) Those who believe that the words the angel said to John end with "...trustworthy and true" 22:6b, do not include the words following after them in quotation marks, thus representing the words of 22:6c-7 as John's own words to the reader: "And the Lord, the God of the spirits...[to]...the words of the prophecy of this book"; but the middle statement, "Behold, I am coming soon" 22:7a, clearly belongs to Jesus, and not to John. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on Revelation 22:6-19 says of these words that Jesus "spoke by the angel", that is, Jesus spoke directly through the person and mouth of the angel.
And finally, (4) those who believe the angel is speaking in the role of a prophet of Jesus, and is here directly proclaiming Jesus' words to John as his mouthpiece, include all of the words of 22:6b-7 in one set of quotation marks as a single statement by the angel:
"[And he said to me] These words are trustworthy and true...[to}...the words of the prophecy of this book."
However, it should be noted that in 22:6-7, this inclusion of all the words after "And he said to me" within a single set of quotation marks appears to represent the angel as being sent by God the Father, not by Jesus Christ, and the words, "the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets...And behold, I am coming soon", are then from Jesus, and represent a separate statement. The angel would not say of himself, that God "sent his angel", and the angel would not say of himself, "I am coming soon." This particular interpretive editing of 22:6-7 as being a single quotation from either the angel or from Jesus Christ does not appear to conflict with the declaration in 1:1, and thus in both places the punctuation of text according to (4) above does not support the interpretation that Jesus Christ sent his angel to John, but that God after giving to Jesus the revelation then sent his angel to John. However, to many exegetes the Greek rules of grammar suggest in both passages that the one who sent "his angel" to John is most probably Jesus himself. Still, it remains an open question among scholars, exegetes and Bible students whether Jesus sent his angel to make the revelation known after God had given it to him, or whether God then sent his angel to John to make known what he had given to Jesus after he gave the revelation to Jesus. The appearances of Jesus personally to John on Patmos seem to argue against this second suggestion.
The earliest manuscript copies of Revelation (in fact, manuscript copies of any of the texts included in the entire collection of the sacred scriptures of the Bible) do not feature upper and lower case letters and do not feature punctuation marks, commas, semicolons, colons, periods, hyphens, dashes, quotation marks, parentheses, paragraph breaks, and indentations of text. All such elements of textual style which appear in the more recent versions and editions of the sacred scriptures of the past three or four centuries are inserted according to the interpretive judgment of the various translators, exegetes, and publishing committees of editions and versions of the Bible. See Eisegesis.
See multiple commentaries:
Revelation 1:1, and 22:6 and 22:7.
The debate is apparently unnecessary and already settled by the words of Revelation 22:16
See multiple commentaries on Revelation 22:16.
2 Timothy 2:11-19 - 1 Timothy 1:4-7


"Domitian's cousin, Flavius Clemens, the consul"

"whom the Roman Tacitus characterizes as below contempt for his lack of energy"

Being a peaceful man, content with what he had, he had no venal appetite for self-advancing ambition.
See 1 Timothy 6:6-10 and Hebrews 13:5-6. Compare Galatians 5:13-26.

" Flavia Domitilla...was exiled with many others to the island of Pontia as the consequence of their testimony to Christ. "

"A boy who had the charge of the Lares in his bed-chamber"

Household gods.
The Lares were images of the tutelary deities, or guardian spirits of Domitian's imperial household. It is ironic that the boy who was in charge of the "god-cupboard" of protective images in the emperor's imperial bed chamber joined in the assassination of the emperor.
In ancient pagan Roman religion, the lares were household gods, especially the spirits of departed ancestors, regarded by pagan Romans as presiding over the household for protection and good fortune, usually associated with the penates, the household gods presiding over the pantry and the hearth fire associated with the goddess Vesta, also protectors of the household.
See the following articles:
Compare:
Wisdom 14:9-31;
Baruch 6:4-73;
Romans 1:20-32
See also:
2 Maccabees 15:7-17
2 Peter 1:12-15 "I will see to it after my departure that you may be able at any time to recall these things."

"It is said that Vespasian once saw in a dream a balance...the event corresponded to the symbol; for the reigns of the two parties were precisely of the same duration.

Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Vespasian 25.
"However, this is not the only interpretation. Nero the persecutor of Christ was the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty; Domitian the persecutor of Christ was the end of the Flavian dynasty. Both had been placed in the balance of God."
—Michael Paul Heart.

[The events of A.D. 93 through 97 are not included in the Conservative Bible New Testament.]


Compare the Conservative Bible text (conservapedia.com):

The Revelation from Jesus Christ. God gave this to Him, to show to His slaves the things that must happen without delay. He then sent it, signed by His Messenger, to his slave, John,

who gave evidence of the Truth of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all the things he saw.

Blessed is the man who reads, and those who hear, the words of this prophecy, and preserve those things written in this document. The time has arrived.

(From:) John. To: the seven churches in Asia Minor. Grace to you, and peace, from Him Who is, Who was, and Who shall be, and from the seven spirits in the presence of His throne,

And from Jesus Christ, the Witness, the Faithful One, the First-born of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him Who loved us, and washed us out of our sins in His own Blood,

And made us kings and priests for God and His Father, be the glory and the rulership for ever and ever. Amen.

Look! He's coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, including those who pierced Him, and all the clans of the earth will wail on His account. Yes, so be it.

I am the A and the Z, says the Lord, Who is, and Who was, and Who will be, the All-Ruler.

I, John, your brother and sharer in oppression, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island named Patmos, on account of the Truth of God, and the witness of Jesus Christ.

I was in the Sprit on the Lord's Day, and heard behind me a great voice, like a trumpet blast,

saying, "Write down what you see in a book, and send it to these churches: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

And I turned to see the Voice That was talking to me. After turning, I could see seven golden candlesticks.

In the middle of those seven candlesticks I saw someone who looked like the Son of man. He wore a robe reaching to His feet, and a golden belt.

His head and hair were like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a fiery flame.

His feet were like polished bronze, as if they had been fired in a furnace, and His Voice was like the sound of a vast amount of rushing water.

He held seven stars in His right hand. Out of His mouth a sharp double-edged broadsword issued forth. His face was like the sun shining at full strength.

When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. He laid His right hand on me, and told me, "Don't be afraid. I am the First and the Last.

I am He Who lives, and became dead. Look, I am alive, for ever and ever, and I hold the keys of hell and of death.

Write the things you have seen, the things that are happening now, and the things that are about to happen after this,

the secret of the seven stars that you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the Messengers of the seven churches. The seven candlesticks that you saw, are the seven churches.

To the Messenger of the Church of Ephesus: He Who holds the seven stars in His right hand, and walks among the seven golden candlesticks, says this:

I know about your deeds, and your hard work, and your patience, and how you cannot tolerate evil people. You have tested those who say that they are Apostles, though they aren't, and have discovered them to be liars.

You have patience, and have endured for the sake of My Name, and have not grown weary.

But I have a few things against you: You have left your first love.

So remember where you fell from, and get your minds right, and do the most important things. If you don't, I will come and take your candlestick from its place, unless you get your minds right.

But I'll say this for you: you hate the deeds the Nicolaitans, and I hate them also.

He who is willing to listen, let him listen to what the Spirit has to say to the churches. To the winner I will give fruit to eat from the Tree of Life, that grows in the middle of God's Paradise.

To the Messenger of the Church in Smyrna: The First and the Last, Who became dead, and then lived, says this:

I know your deeds, and the oppression and poverty that you work under (but in fact you are rich!). I also know the insults you receive from those who say they are Jews but aren't, but are a congregation from Satan.

Don't be afraid of any of the things that you are about to suffer. Look: the Devil is about to have some of you thrown into prison for trial, and you will suffer oppression for ten days. Be faithful even if it means dying, and I will give you a crown of life.

Anyone willing to listen, hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The winner will not have any just cause to suffer the second death.

To the Messenger of the Church in Pergamos: He Who wields the sharp double-edged broadsword says this:

I know where you live, in Satan's very capital city. I also know that you are holding My Name fast and did not deny My faith, even in the days in which Antipas was My faithful witness, who was killed among you, in Satan's capital.

But I have a few things against you: You have in your church those who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to throw a stumblingblock in front of the sons of Israel, and cause them to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit immoral sexual acts.

You also have those who hold to the teachings of the Nicolaitans, which I hate.

Change your hearts about this. If you don't, I will come to you quickly and make war against them with the broadsword of My Mouth.

Anyone willing to listen, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To the winner I will give some of the hidden manna, and will also give a white ballot stone, and on that ballot stone a new name written, that only the receiver will know.

To the Messenger of the Church in Thyatira:The Son of God, Who has eyes like a fiery flame, and Whose feet are like polished bronze, says this:

I know your deeds, your love, your faith, your service, and your patience. I also know that your last works are greater than your first.

But I have a few things against you: You permit that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and lead aside My slaves to practice immoral sexual conduct and to eat things that have been sacrificed to idols.

I gave her the chance to get her mind right, but she didn't want to change her mind and stop doing sexually immoral things.

Look: I am throwing her onto a bed, and I am throwing those who commit adultery with her into great oppression, if they don't change their minds and stop doing these things.

I will surely kill her children, and all the churches will know that I am He Who searches minds and hearts. I will pay each and every one of you according to your works.

But to you I say, and to the rest of them in Thyatira, who do not go along with this teaching, and have not plumbed the depths of Satan, as those people have: I will not lay any other burden on you.

What you already have, hold tightly onto until I come.

To the winner, the one who preserves My works to the end, I will give authority over all ethnic groups.

He will rule them with an iron sceptre, and like potter's vessels they will be shattered.

Even as I received it from My Father, I will give him the morning star.

Anyone willing to listen, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

To the Messenger of the church in Sardis: The One holding the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars, says this: I know your deeds. You have a reputation for being alive, and you are dead.

Look out! Strengthen what you have left, that is about to die. I have not found your works satisfactory before God.

So remember how you received and heard the Truth. Hold it fast, and get your minds right. In fact, if you won't become alert, I will come to you the way a thief might, and you won't know at what hour I will come on you.

But you have a few names in Sardis who haven't soiled their clothes. They will walk with Me dressed in white, because they deserve to.

The winner will be dressed in white clothes, and I will not strike out his name from the Book of Life, but I will proclaim His name in front of My Father, and in front of His Messengers.

Anyone willing to listen, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

To the Messenger of the church in Philadelphia: The Holy One, the True One, the Holder of the Key of David, Who opens what no man can shut, and shuts what no man can open, says this:

I know your deeds. Look: I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it. Though you have only a little strength, you have kept My Truth and not denied My Name.

Look: I will make those belonging to the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews but aren't, but are lying, I will make them come and fall down before your feet, and know that I have loved you.

Because you have kept the word of My patience, I will also keep you out of the Hour of the Test, that will come upon the entire inhabited world, to test all the earth-dwellers.

Look: I am coming quickly. Hold tightly to what you have, and let no man take your crown.

The winner I will make into a pillar in the Temple of My God, and he will never leave it again. And I will write on him the Name of My God, and the Name of the City of My God (the new Jerusalem), that will come down out of the sky from My God, and I will write on Him My new Name.

Anyone willing to listen, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

To the Messenger of the church of the Laodiceans: The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the beginning of God's creation, says this:

I know your works, and that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were one or the other!

You are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold. I'm about ready to vomit you out of My mouth.

You say, "I am rich, and prosperous, and I don't need a thing." You don't realize that you are miserable, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

I would advise you to buy from Me fire-refined gold, if you want to be rich, and white clothes to wear, if you want to be clothed and not have all your body parts showing, and to rub some salve into your eyes if you want to see.

If I love someone, I'm going to scold them and correct them. So start being zealous, and get your minds right.

Look: I'm standing at the door and knocking. If any man hears My voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.

I will grant to the winner the seat of honor with Me on My throne, the same way that I won, and earned the seat of honor with My Father on His throne.

Anyone willing to listen, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

After these things, I looked, and saw a door opened in the heavens. The first voice I heard sounded like a trumpet talking to me. The voice said, "Come up here, and I will show you the things that have to happen after this."

At once I was in the Spirit. I saw a throne in heaven, and the One sitting on it.

The sitting One shone like a green jasper and a carnelian, and the throne had a rainbow around it that looked like an emerald.

Twenty-four chairs stood around the throne, and in those chairs I saw twenty-four elders seated, all dressed in white. They wore golden crowns on their heads.

Lightnings and thunderings and voices issued from the throne, and seven lamps of fire were burning in front of the throne. Those are the seven Spirits of God.

In front of the throne was a sea of glass like crystal. In the middle of the throne, and all around it, were four living creatures, having eyes in front and back.

The first creature was like a lion, the second like a calf, the third had a face like that of a man, and the fourth was like an eagle in flight.

Each of the four living creatures had six wings all around it, and they were covered on the inside with eyes. They never rested, day or night, and were saying, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was, and is, and is to come."

And as those living creatures gave glory and honor and thanks to the One sitting on the throne, the One Who lives for ever and ever,

the twenty-four elders fell down before Him Who was sitting on the throne, and worshipped Him Who lives for ever and ever, and threw their crowns down in front of the throne. They said,

"You deserve, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. You have created all things, and for Your pleasure they are and were created."

I saw in the right hand of Him Who sat on the throne a book written on the inside and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.

I saw a mighty Messenger proclaiming with a loud voice, "Who deserves to open the book, and to break its seals?"

Not a man in heaven or earth or under the earth could open the book, or even look at it.

I cried a lot of tears, because no man was found who deserved to open and read the book, or even to look at it.

Then one of the elders said to me, "Stop crying. Look: the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has won the right to open the book and to break its seven seals."

And I looked. And suddenly, in the middle of the throne and the four living creatures, and in the middle of the elders, stood a Lamb that looked as though it had been slaughtered. It had seven horns and seven eyes. These are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who was sitting on the throne.

When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down in front of the Lamb. Every one of them held a harp, and golden vials full of incense spices,

They sang a new song, saying, "You deserve to take the book, and open its seals. You were slain, and you have bought people out of every clan and language-group and people and ethnic-group,

and have made kings and priests out of them for God, and they will reign on the earth.

And I looked again, and heard the voice of many Messengers all around the throne and the living creatures and the elders. They numbered in myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands.

They said with a loud voice, "The Lamb Who was slain deserves to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing."

Every creature in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and in them, I heard them all saying, "To Him Who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, for ever and ever."

And the four living creatures said, "So be it!" And the twenty-four elders fell down and kissed the feet of Him Who lives for ever and ever.

I watched when the Lamb broke one of the seals, and heard one of the four living creatures saying, like a thunderclap, "Come!"

And I saw a white horse. Its rider held a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he rode out conquering and bent on conquest.

When He had opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come!"

And a fiery-red horse went out. It was given to its rider to take peace from the earth and cause men to kill one another, and an out-sized infantry sword was given to him.

When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come!" And I looked, and saw a black horse. Its rider held a pair of balance scales in his hand.

And I heard a voice in the middle of the four living creatures say, "A dry quart of wheat for a shilling, and three dry quarts of barley for a shilling, and do not damage the oil or the grape juice!"

When He had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!"

I looked, and saw a pale sour-apple-green horse. The name of its rider was Death, and Hades followed with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, with famine, with death, and with the wild, ravening animals of the earth.

When He had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain on account of the Truth of God, and for the testimony that they held.

They cried out with a loud voice, "How long, O Holy and True Master, must we wait before You hold trial and make those who dwell on the earth pay for our blood?"

Each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little while longer, until their fellow slaves and brothers, who were about to be killed as they had been, would be.

And I watched when He had opened the sixth seal, and a great earthquake happened. The sun turned as black as sackcloth made from hair, and the moon turned the color of blood.

A shower of meteors fell from the sky to earth, in the same way that a fig tree might drop its unripe figs when it is shaken by a strong wind.

The sky seemed to roll up like a scroll being rolled togther, and every mountain and island was displaced.

And the heads-of-state of the earth, and the important men, and the senior military men, and the armed men, and every prison inmate and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and the rocks in the mountains.

They said to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him Who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb!

The great Day of Sentencing has come, and who can stand up in Their Court?"

After this I saw four Messengers of God standing on the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, so that the wind would not blow on the earth, or on the sea, or on any tree.

I saw another Messenger rising up from the east, holding the seal of the Living God. He cried out with a loud voice to the four Messengers, who had been given power to hurt the earth and the sea,

"Don't hurt the earth, or the sea, or the trees, until we have sealed the slaves of our God on the forehead."

And I heard how many would be sealed: 144,000 men from all the tribes of the sons of Israel were so sealed: Judah: 12,000 Reuben: 12,000 Gad: 12,000 Ashur: 12,000 Naphthali: 12,000 Manasseh: 12,000 Simeon: 12,000 Levi: 12,000 Issachar: 12,000 Zebulun: 12,000 Joseph: 12,000 Benjamin: 12,000

After this, I looked and saw a vast crowd too numerous to count, with members from all ethnic groups, clans, people, and languages, standing before the throne, and befor the Lamb. They wore white robes and held palm fronds in their hands.

They cried with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God Who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!"

All the Messengers stood all around the throne, and around the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces in front of the throne, and worshipped God.

They said, "So be it! Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and strength, be to our God for ever and ever. So be it."

One of the elders answered and said to me, "What are those people who are dressed in the white robes? And where did they come from?"

I told him, "Sir, you know the answer." And he told me, "They are the ones who came out of the Great Oppression, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.

That's why they are in front of the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. He Who sits on the throne will live among them.

They will never be hungry anymore, or be thirsty anymore. Nor will the sun light on them, nor any heat.

The Lamb Who is in the middle of the throne will feed them, and will lead them to living fountins of waters, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

When He had opened the seventh seal, silence fell in heaven for half an hour.

And I saw the seven Messengers standing before God. Seven trumpets were given to them.

Then another Messenger came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer. A lot of incense was given to him, in order that he offer it with the prayers of all saints on the golden altar in front of the throne.

The smoke from the incense, that came with the prayers of the saints, rose up before God out of the Messenger's hand.

The Messenger took the censer, filled it with hot coals from the altar, and threw it to the earth. This produces voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.

Then the seven Messengers that had the seven trumpets got ready to blow them.

The first Messenger blew his trumpet, and hail and fire mixed with blood fell on the earth. One-third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

The second Messenger blew his trumpet, and an object like a great flaming mountain was thrown into the sea. One-third of the sea became blood,

one-third of all the living creatures of the sea died, and one-third of the ships were sunk.

The third Messenger blew his trumpet, and a great star-like object fell from heaven, burning like a lamp. It fell on one-third of the rivers, and on the fresh-water springs.

The name of the star was Absinthe. One-third of the waters were turned into absinthe. Many men died from the waters, because they became bitter.

The fourth Messenger blew his trumpet, and one-third of the sun was affected, as was one-third of the moon and one-third of the stars. It was as if the third part them was darkened, and the day failed to shine for one-third of its length, and the night had one-third less light.

And I watched, and heard a Messenger flying through the middle of the sky, saying with a loud voice, "Woe! Woe! Woe to those who inhabit the earth, on account of the other trumpet voices from the three Messengers who haven't yet blown their trumpets!"

The fifth Messenger blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fall out of the sky to the earth. The key of the Abyss was given to him.

He opened the well of the Abyss, and smoke came out of the well, like the smoke of a great furnace. The sun and the air were darkened from the smoke from the well.

Out of that smoke came locusts on the earth. To them was given a capability similar to that of the scorpions of the earth.

They were ordered not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

They were told not to kill those men, but to torment them for five months. Their torment would be like that from a scorpion sting.

In those days men will look for death and not find it. They will want to die but not be able to.

In shape and form the locusts were like war horses. On their heads were golden crown-like objects, and their faces were like men's faces.

They had hair like a woman's hair, and their teeth were like lion's teeth.

They had breastplates that were hard as iron, and their wings made a sound like that of many horse-drawn chariots going into battle.

They had scorpion-like tails, and those tails had stings, and they were capable of harming men for five months.

They had a king over them, who is the Messenger of the Abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek is Apollyon.

One woe has passed. Now two more woes come after this.

Now the sixth Messenger blew his trumpet. I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar that stands before God.

The voice said to the sixth Messenger who was holding the trumpet, "Release the four Messengers who are restrained in the Euphrates River."

And those four Messengers were released. They had been prepared for an hour, a day, a month and a year, to kill one-third of all men.

The number of the cavalrymen were two hundred million; I heard that number.

And so I saw the horses in the vision, and their riders. They had breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and of burning sulfur. The horses' heads were like lion's heads, and out of their mouths poured fire and smoke and burning sulfur.

By these three substances, one-third of all men were killed, by the fire and smoke and burning sulfure that poured out of their mouths.

The horses' capability was in their mouths, and in their tails. Their tails were like snakes, and had heads, and with those heads they could bring harm.

The remainder of the men who were not killed by these plagues did not get their minds away from the works of their hands, and did not stop worshipping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone, and wood, things that can neither hear nor see nor walk.

Neither did they change their hearts away from their murders, their drug abuse, their immoral sexual lifestyles, or their thefts.

Then I saw another high-ranking Messenger come down from the sky, dressed in a cloud. He had a rainbow on his head, and His face was as bright as the sun, and His feet were like pillars of fire.

He had in His hand a little open scroll. He set His right foot on the sea and His left foot on the land.

He cried out with a voice like a roaring lion, and seven thunders answered Him.

I was about to write down what the seven thunders had said, but then I heard a voice out of heaven telling me, "Those things that the thunders said are classified. Don't write them down."

The Messenger Whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land lifted up His hand to heaven,

and swore by Him Who lives for ever and ever, Who created heaven, and the things in it, and the earth, and the things in it, and the sea, and the things in it, that there would be no further delay.

On the contrary, in the days of the voice of the seventh Messenger, when he will begin to blow his trumpet, the secret of God will be complete, as He has declared to His slaves, the prophets.

The voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, and said, "Go and take that little open scroll out of the hand of the Messenger standing on sea and land."

I went up to the Messenger, and said to Him, "Give me that little scroll." And He said to me, "Take it, and eat it up. It will give you a bellyache, even though it will taste as sweet as honey in your mouth."

So I took the little scroll out of the Messenger's hand, and ate it up. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but as soon as I had eaten it, I had a bellyache.

And He told me, "You have to prophesy again in front of many peoples, and ethnic groups, and languages, and heads-of-state."

Then He gave me a reed, like a measuring rod. He said, "Get up and measure the Temple of God, and the altar, and all those who are worshiping inside.

But leave out the outer courtyard outside the Temple, and don't measure that. It has been given to the Gentiles, and they will tread the Holy City underfoot for forty-two months.

And I will enable My Two Witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1260 days, while wearing sackcloth.

These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks that stand before the God of the earth.

If anyone tries to hurt them, fire comes out of their mouth and burns up their enemies. If any man thinks he can hurt them, then he must be killed just this way.

These men have the authority to close the sky, so that the rain will not fall in the days of their prophesying. They have the authority over the waters, to transform them toblood, and to strike the land with all sorts of plagues, at their sole discretion.

And when they have finished testifying, the ravening monster coming out of the Abyss will go to war against them, defeat them, and kill them.

Their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city. This city is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, and our Lord was also crucified here.

And representative members of the peoples and clans and languages and ethnic groups will watch their dead bodies for three and a half days, and will not allow their dead bodies to be buried.

Those who are living on the earth will be glad that they're dead, and celebrate, and exchange gifts, because these two prophets will have tormented everyone living on earth at the time."

And after the three and a half days, the Spirit of Life from God came into them. They stood on their feet, and great fear fell on the spectators.

They heard a great voice from the sky telling them, "Come up here!" And they rose up to the sky in a cloud, and their enemies watched them rise.

In that same moment a great earthquake struck the city, destroying ten percent of the buildings and causing seven thousand deaths. The rest of the city's residents were frightened, and gave glory to the God of heaven.

The second woe is past. The third woe is coming quickly.

Now the seventh Messenger blew his trumpet. Great voices in heaven shouted, "The kingdoms of the world have become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever!"

The twenty-four elders, who were sitting in front of God in their seats, fell on their faces and kissed God's feet.

They said, "We thank You, Lord God Almighty, Who are, and was, and are to come, because You have taken to Yourself great power, and have become a King indeed!

The Gentiles were angry, and Your Magisterial Wrath came, as did the time for the dead to be judged, and for the giving of a reward to Your slaves the prophets, and to the saints, and to those, both small and great, who give respect and awe to Your Name, and for the destroyers of the earth to be destroyed!"

And the Temple of God was opened in heaven. Inside His Temple the Ark of the Covenant was seen. Lightnings, voices, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail occurred.

Now a great sign appeared in the sky: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown with twelve stars in it.

She was pregnant and in labor. She cried out in pain, because parturition was about to occur.

Then another sign appeared in the sky: a giant fire-red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.

Its tail dragged one-third of the stars out of the sky and threw them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the pregnant woman, waiting to eat up her Child as soon as it was born.

She was delivered of a Man-Child, Who was destined to rule over all ethnic groups with a rod of iron. Her Child was snatched up to God, and to His throne.

Then the woman fled into the desert, where she had a place prepared by God, so that they would feed her there for 1260 days.

And war broke out in heaven. Michael and his Messengers fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his Messengers fought back.

They lost, both the war and their place in heaven.

The giant dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the entire world, was thrown out intothe earth, and his Messengers were thrown out with him.

I heard a loud voice in the sky, saying, "Now salvation has come, and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ! The accuser of our brothers, who accused them in front of God day and night, has been thrown down!

They beat him by reason of the blood of the Lamb and the Truth of their testimony. They did not love their lives more than death.

For that reason, be glad, you skies, and you who live in them. But it will go badly for those who live on land and sea! The devil has come down to you, in towering out-of-control fury, because he knows that his time is limited!"

And when the dragon realized that he had been thrown to earth, he persecuted the woman who had given birth to the Man-Child.

The woman was given two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, to be nourished for three and one-half years, from the face of the Big Snake.

The Snake belched water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, trying to wash her away.

And the land helped the woman. The land opened its mouth, and swallowed up the flood that the dragon belched out of his mouth.

The dragon was angry with the woman, and went to war against the remainder of her descendants, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

And he stood on the seashore.

And I saw rising out of the sea a murderous, ravening, monstrous creature. He had seven heads and ten horns, and ten diadems on his horns, and blasphemous names on his heads.

And the ravener that I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like bear's feet, and his mouth like a lion's mouth. The dragon gave him his power, and his capital, and great authority.

And one of his heads seemed to have a fatal wound, and the fatal wound had healed. All the earth was awe-struck at the ravener.

They worshipped the dragon that had given his authority to the ravener, and they worshipped the ravener, too. They said, "Is there anyone like this guy? Who can make war against him and win?"

A mouth speaking big and blasphemous words was given to him, and also the authority to continue in office for forty-two months.

He opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to insult His Name, and His tabernacle, and those living in heaven.

And he was given the capability to fight a war with the saints, and beat them, and authority was given him over every clan and language and ethnic group.

Everyone who lives on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written in the Book of Life of the Slain Lamb since the foundation of the world.

Anyone willing to understand, understand this:

Anyone who takes a group of captives, will go into captivity himself, and he who kills with the sword will be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and faith of the saints.

And I saw another ravener coming up out of the land. He had two horns like lamb's horns, but he spoke like a dragon.

He exercises all the authority that the first ravener had before him, and passes a law that the earth and those living in it must worship the first ravener, the one with the healed fatal wound.

He makes great signs, even to making fire come down from the sky to the earth for men to see,

and deceives those who live on the earth through those signs that he is given power to make within sight of the (first) ravener. He tells those who live on the earth to make a statue to the ravener, the one who had been wounded by a sword and still lived.

He is capable of giving breath to the statue of the ravener, so that the statue of the ravener can speak, so that everyone who will not worship the statue of the ravener will be subject to execution.

He also passes a law to give to everyone, small and great, rich and poor, lawful resident and inmate, a cattle-brand-like stamp in the right hand, or on the forehead,

so that no man would be allowed to buy or sell, if he didn't have the mark. That mark is either the name of the ravener or the numerical value of his name.

Here is a matter for insight. Anyone who can understand, can calculate the number of the ravener. It is a man's number, and that number is 666.

I looked, and saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion. With Him were 144,000 men who had His Name and His Father's Name written on their foreheads.

I heard a voice out of the sky, like the voice of a lot of rushing water, and the voice of a great thunderclap. I heard the sound of harp players playing on their harps.

They sang a new song in front of the throne, and in front of the four living creatures, and the elders. No man could learn that song except the 144,000, which have been redeemed from the earth.

These are men who have not defiled themselves with women, because they have never been married. These are the men who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They have been redeemed from among men, and are the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.

Not a lie was ever found in their mouth, because they are faultless and unblemished.

Then I saw another Messenger flying in the middle of the sky. He had the everlasting good news, to preach to those who live on earth, and to every ethnic group, clan, language, and people.

He said with a loud voice, "Be afraid of God and give Him glory! The hour of His judgment has come! Worship Him Who made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the springs!"

A second Messenger followed. He said, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great! In her out-of-control sexual immorality she made every ethnic group take part!"

A third Messenger followed them, saying with a loud voice, "If any man worships the ravener and his statue, and accepts his cattle stamp on his forehead or in his hand,

that man will feel the full weight of God's fury, which is added full-strength to His magisterial indignation. He will be tormented with fire and burning sulfur in front of the Holy Messengers, and in front of the Lamb,

and the smoke of their torment will rise up for ever and ever. They will have no rest day or night, those who worship the ravener and his image, and anyone who gets stamped like cattle with his name on them!"

Here is where the patience of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, pays off.

I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, "Write: 'The dead, meaning whoever dies in the Lord from this moment forward, will not be cut off.' Indeed, says the Spirit, they will have rest from their hard work, and their deeds follow them."

I looked, and saw a white cloud. On that cloud sat One looking like the Son of man. He had a golden crown on His head, and in His hand he carried a sharp sickle.

Another Messenger came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him Who was sitting on the cloud, "Thrust in Your sickle, and take Your harvest! The time has come for You to harvest Your crop, and the harvest of the earth is ripe!"

The Man sitting on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was harvested.

Then another Messenger came out of the temple in heaven. He also held a sharp sickle.

And another Messenger came from the altar, one having authority over fire. He cried with a loud cry to the holder of the sharp sickle, "Thrust in your sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth; the grapes are fully ripe.

And the Messenger thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vintage of the earth, and threw it into the winepress of the great out-of-control fury of God.

The winepress was tread on outside the city. Blood came out of the winepress, as high as horses' bridles, for a distance of 1600 furlongs.

And I saw another sign in the heavens, a great and truly awesome sign: seven Messengers of God having the seven last plagues. In them the out-of-control rage of God is filled up.

I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire. Those who had won the victory over the ravener, and over his statue, and over the number of his name, were standing on the sea of glass, holding harps from God.

They were singing the song of Moses, the slave of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and awesome are Your deeds, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, King of saints!

Will anyone not fear You and glorify Your Name? You alone are holy. All ethnic groups will come and worship before You, because Your verdicts are made clear!"

And after this I looked, and the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony in heaven was opened.

The seven Messengers came out of the Temple, holding the seven plagues. They wore clean and brightly shining linen, and wore golden belts around their chests.

One of the four living creatures gave the seven Messengers seven golden vials full of the rage of God, Who lives for ever and ever.

The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from His power. No man could enter the Temple, until the seven plagues from the seven Messengers had run their course.

I heard a great voice out of the Temple, saying to the seven Messengers, "Be on your way and pour out the vials of the rage of God onto the earth!"

The first went out and poured out his vial onto the earth. A rash of foul-smelling, painful sores broke out on the men who had the cattle-stamp of the ravener, and on them who were worshipping his statue.

The second poured out his vial onto the sea. It turned into post-mortem blood clot matter, and every living thing in the sea died.

The third poured out his vial onto the rivers and freshwater springs, and they turned into blood.

I heard the Messenger in charge of the freshwater supplies say, "You are just, O Lord, Who are, and were, and will be, because you have ruled in this way!

They have spilled the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink, because they deserve it!"

I heard one from the altar saying, "Yes indeed, Lord God Almighty, your verdicts are true and just!"

The fourth poured out his vial onto the sun. The sun was then made capable of scorching men with fire.

Men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the Name of the God That has authority over these plagues. They didn't get their minds right, nor did they give Him glory.

The fifth poured out his vial on the capital city of the ravener, and his regime became darkened, and people gnawed their tongues from the pain,

and blasphemed the God of heaven, blaming Him for their pains and their sores, and did not change their hearts about their deeds.

The sixth poured out his vial on the great Euphrates River, and its water was dried up, in order to clear a path for the heads-of-state of the Far East.

I saw three frog-like demons coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the ravener, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

These are the spirits of demons, that make miraculous signs and go out to all the heads-of-state of the earth and the entire world, to gather them to the War of the Great Day of God Almighty.

"Behold! I am coming like a Thief! Blessed is the one who stays alert, and keeps his clothes on, if he doesn't want to walk naked, and let people see him in a shameful condition!"

And he massed them in a place that is called in Hebrew, Armageddon.

And the seventh poured out his vial into the air. A great voice out of the temple, from the throne, said, "It is done!"

Lightings, voices, and thunderclaps occurred, and a gret earthquake, such has not been felt since men walked this earth, so terrible was this earthquake.

The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the Gentiles were destroyed. Babylon the Great came into the memory of God, Who lashed out at her in the full out-of-control fury of His magisterial indignation.

Every island was sunk, and the mountains could not be found.

And a great hail fell out of the sky onto men. Every hailstone weighed roughly as much as a backpack-load. Men blasphemed God and blamed Him for the plague of the hail, because this plague was very, very great.

One of the seven Messengers who held the seven vials came and talked with me. He told me, "Come here; I will show you the verdict in the case of the great harlot who sits on many waters,

who has had the heads-of-state of the earth as her clients, and those who live on the earth have gotten intoxicated with all her immoral activities and programs."

So he carried me away in the Spirit into the desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet-colored ravening animal, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decorated herself with gold and precious gemtones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, full of detestable substances and the unclean products of her immoral acts.

On her forehead this name was written: "Secret, Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots and of Detestable Things from the Earth."

I saw that this woman was intoxicated from the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I got the shock of my life.

And the Messenger told me, "Why are you so shocked? I will tell you the secret of the woman, and of that seven-headed and ten-horned wild animal that's carrying her.

That wild animal you saw was alive, is now dead, and is about to rise out of the Abyss, and be on his way to utter ruin. They who are living on the earth, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, will be shocked and awed when they see this ravening animal who was alive, is now dead, and yet is still alive.

Here is where you need insight: The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman is sitting. They are also seven emperors.

Five of them have died, one is in power right now, and the other hasn't come to power yet, and when he does come to power, he'll remain in power only for a short while.

The ravening animal that was alive, and is now dead, is in fact the eighth emperor. He is one of the seven, and is on his way to total ruin.

The ten horns you saw are ten heads-of-state, who have not yet received a state to run. They will receive authority aas heads-of-state for one hour along with the ravener.

They are unanimous, and will give their power and their authority to the ravener.

They will fight a war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will beat them. He is, after all, the Lord of lords, and King of kings, and His companions are called, and chosen, and faithful."

And he told me, "The waters you saw, where the harlot is sitting, are peoples, and crowds, and ethnic groups, and languages.

The ten horns you saw on the ravener, will hate the harlot and render her desolate and naked. They will eat her flesh and burn her up.

Because God has put it into their hearts to accomplish His purpose, to forge an alliance, and to give their sovereignty to the ravener, until everything that God said would happen, does happen.

And the woman you saw is the great city that rules imperially over all the heads-of-state of the earth."

After this, I saw another Messenger coming down from heaven, having great authority. The earth was made to shine with His glory.

And He cried with a loud voice: "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become the dwelling place of demons, the dungeon of every unclean spirit, and a cage for every unclean and despicable bird!

All the ethnic groups have taken part in her wild orgies, and the heads-of-state of the earth have had sexual favors from her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich through the addictive power of her sensual luxuries!"

I heard another voice out of the sky. It said, "Come out of her, My people, so that you will not be mixed up in her sins, and that you not receive any of her plagues!

Her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her unjust dealings!

Reward her the same way that she rewarded you, and pay her back doubled and redoubled according to her works. Fill her cup double-full!

To the extent that she glorified herself, and lived luxuriously, give her just as much torment and sorrow! She says in her heart, 'I sit as a queen, I am not a widow, and I will never be sorry'!

For this reason, her plagues will come in one day, death, mourning, and famine. She will be burned up in fire, because the Lord God Who convicts her is mighty!

The kings of the earth, her former clients who lived in luxury with her, will weep and mourn for her, when they see the smoke of her burning.

They will stand at a distance for fear of her torment, and say, 'Woe! Woe! That great city, Babylon the mighty city! In one hour your verdict has been delivered!

"The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, because nobody is buying their wares anymore!

The wares of gold, silver, precious gemstones, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple and silk and scarlet, and all your wood, and all types of ivory vessels, and rare wooden vessels, and of bronze, iron, and marble,

and cinnamon, and aromatic spices, and ointments, and myrrh, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine-ground flour, and wheat, and cattle, and sheep, and horses, and four-wheeled vehicles, and the bodies and souls of men.

The fruits that your soul lusted after have left you, and all things that were luxurious and splendid have left you, and you will never find them again!"

The merchants of these things, who made themselves rich by her, will stand at a distance for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning.

They will say, "Woe, woe, that great city, that was dressed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decorated with gold, precious stones, and pearls!

In one hour such great riches have been laid waste!" And every ship's captain, and all the ships' passengers and crewmen, and all who made their living trading by sea, stood at a distance.

They cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, "Was there ever any city like this city?"

They threw dust on their heads, and, while weeping and wailing, they cried, "Woe! Woe! That great city, in which everyone who had ships in the sea grew rich from her expensive tastes! In one hour she is turned into a ghost city!

Be glad about her, heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, because God has awarded you a judgment against her!"

And a strong Messenger picked up a stone like a large millstone, and threw it into the sea. He said, "In this way, Babylon the great city will be violently destroyed, and will never be found again!

The sound of harp-players, and musicians, and flutists, and trumpeters, will never be heard in you again! No craftsman, of whatever craft, will be found in you again, and the sound of a millstone will never be heard in you again.

The light of a candle will never shine in you again, and the voice of bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you again. Your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all ethnic groups were deceived by means of your drugs of abuse!

In her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of everyone that was ever killed on earth!"

After these things, I heard a great voice from many people in heaven, saying, "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power be to the Lord our God!"

His verdicts are true and just. He has convicted the great harlot, and has exacted the penalty for the blood of His slaves at her hand!"

And they said a second time, "Hallelujah! And her smoke rose up for ever and ever!"

The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God Who was sitting on the throne, saying, "Amen! Hallelujah!"

A voice came from the throne, saying, "Praise our God, all His slaves, and you who fear Him, both small and great!"

And I heard a voice like the voice of a great crowd, and the voice of a lot of rushing water, and the voice of loud thunderclaps, saying, "Hallelujah! For the Lord God Almighty is reigning.

Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him. The wedding of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.

To her was granted that she be dressed in fine linen, clean and bright, because the fine linen is the justification of the saints."

And he told me, "Write: 'Blessed are they who are invited to the Lamb's wedding reception.'" And he told me, "These are the true sayings of God."

I fell at his feet to kiss his feet. And he told me, "Don't do that! I am your fellow slave, and the slave of those who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

I saw heaven opened, and saw a white horse, and Him Who sat on it, called Faithful and True. In justice he makes both judgment and war.

His eyes were like a fiery flame. On his head were many diadems, and he had a name written, that no man knew except Him.

He was dressed in a robe covered with blood. His Name is called the Word of God.

The armies in heaven followed him on white horses. They wore fine linen, white and clean.

Out of his mouth goes a sharp broadsword, so that he will strike all ethnic groups with it. He will rule them with an iron sceptre, and he is treading the winepress of the rage of the magisterial anger of Almighty God.

On his robe and on his thigh was a name written: "King of kings, and Lord of lords."

And I saw a Messenger standing in the sun. He cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the middle of the sky, "Come and gather yourselves to the supper of the great God,

so that you may eat the flesh of heads-of-state, and the flesh of ranking army officers, and the flesh of warlords, and the flesh of horses and cavalrymen, and the flesh of all men, lawful residents and inmates, small and great!"

And I saw the ravener, and the heads-of-state of the earth, and their armies, mustered together to make war against Him Who sat on the horse, and against His army.

The ravener was captured, and with him the false prophet that worked signs in front of him, with which he deceived those who had taken the ravener's cattle-brand stamp, and those who worshipped his statue. Both of them were thrown alive into a lake of fire and burning sulfur.

The rest were killed with the broadsword belonging to Him Who sat on the horse, the sword issuing from His mouth. All the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.

I saw a Messenger coming down from heaven, who held the key of the Abyss and a great chain in his hand.

He seized the dragon, the old serpent, that is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,

and threw him into the Abyss, and shut him up, and sealed him in, so that he would never deceive the nations again, until the thousand years had passed. After this, he must be released for a little while.

And I saw thrones, and those sitting on them, who were given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus, and the Truth of God, and who had not worshipped the ravener or his statue, and had not gotten his cattle-brand-like stamp on their foreheads or in their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

But the rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the First Resurrection.

Anyone having a part in the First Resurrection is considered blessed and holy. The second death has no authority over these people. On the contrary, they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with Him for a thousand years.

Now when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison.

He will go out to deceive the ethnic groups in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them together to fight a war. The number of them will be like the sand of the sea.

They went up over the breadth of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. Then fire came down from heaven and consumed them.

The devil that had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and burning sulfur, where the ravener and the false prophet had been thrown, and will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Then I saw a great white throne, and Him Who sat on it. From His face the earth and heaven fled, and they had no place.

I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. Another book was opened: the Book of Life. The dead were judged from the things written in those books, according to their deeds.

The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hell turned over the dead that were in them. Every man was judged according to his works.

Then Death and Hell were thrown into the lake of fire. This, the lake of fire, is the second death.

And any man whose name was not recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.

And I saw a new sky and a new earth. The first sky and the first earth had gone away, and the sea no longer existed.

I, John, saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared the way a bride is adorned for her husband.

I heard a great voice out of the sky, saying, "Now God pitches His tent with men, and He will live with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them, and will be their God.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and neither death nor sorrow nor crying nor pain shall exist any longer, because the first things have gone away.

He Who sat on the thone said, "Look: I am making everything new!" And He told me, "Write! These words are true and faithful."

And He told me, "It is complete. I am A and Z, the beginning and the end. I will allow anyone who is thirsty to drink freely from the fountain of the water of life.

The winner will inherit everything, and I will be his God, and he will be My son.

But the cowards, the unbelievers, the detestable ones, the murderers, the clients of prostitute, the drug pushers, the idol worshippers, and all liars, will have their part in the lake of fire and burning sulfur, which is the second death."

One of the Messengers who held the seven vials filled with the seven last plagues came to me, and talked with me. He said, "Come here, and I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb."

He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, holy Jerusalem, coming down out of the sky from God,

having the glory of God. Its light was like a very precious stone, like a jasper stone, as clear as crystal.

It had a great and high wall, and twelve gates. At the gates twelve Messengers stood guard. The gates had names written on them: the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel.

Three gates were in the east wall, three in the north, three in the south, and three in the west.

The city wall had twelve foundations. In those were the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.

The one talking with me had a golden measuring rod for measuring the city, and its gates, and its wall.

The city lies in a square, and is as long as it is wide. He measured the city with the rod: twelve thousand furlongs. Its length and breadth and height are all the same.

He measured its wall: 144 cubits, according to the measure of a man, which is also the measure of a Messenger of God.

The wall was built of jasper, and the city was built of pure gold, like clear glass.

The foundations of the city wall were embellished with all types of precious stones:
1. Jasper
2. Sapphire
3. Agate
4. Emerald
5. Sardonyx
6. Carnelian
7. Chrysolite
8. Beryl
9. Topaz
10. Chrysoprasus
11. Jacinth
12. Amethyst

The twelve gates were twelve pearls. Each gate was formed from a single pearl. The city street was pure gold, as transparent as glass.

I saw no Temple in it. The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

The city did not need the sun, or the moon, to shine in it. The glory of God gave it its light, and the Lamb is its light.

The ethnic groups of the saved ones will walk in its light, and the heads-of-state of the earth bring their glory and honor into it.

Its gates are never closed by day, and in fact night does not fall there.

They will bring the glory and the honor of all ethnic groups into it.

And under no circumstances will any corrupting influence enter it, nor anything at all that works detestable things, or makes a lie. Only those written in the Lamb's Book of Life may enter.

And He showed me a pure river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing out of the throne of God and the Lamb.

In the middle of its street, and to either side of the river, grew the Tree of Life. It bore all kinds of fruits, and produced fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree served for the healing of the ethnic groups.

Every curse will no longer exist. The Throne of God and the Lamb will be in it, and His slaves will serve Him.

They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.

Night will not exist there, and they will need no candles, or sunlight. The Lord God gives them light, and they will reign for ever and ever.

And he told me, "These words are faithful and true. The Lord God of the holy prophets sent His Messenger to show his slaves the things that must soon happen.

Look: I will come quickly. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.

I, John, saw these things, and heard them. When I had heard and seen everything, I fell down to worship before the feet of the Messenger that showed me these things.

He told me, "Don't do that! I am your fellow slave, and the slave of your brothers the prophets, and of all those who keep the words of this book. Worship God."

And he told me, "Do not keep the words of the prophecy of this book under wraps. The time has arrived.

Let the unjust man remain unjust, and the filthy man remain filthy. Let the just man stay just, and the holy man stay holy."

"Look: I will come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man according to his deeds.

I am A and Z, the beginning and the end, first and last."

Blessed are they who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the Tree of Life, and may walk in through the gates into the city.

Outside are homosexuals, and drug dealers, and prostitute users, and murderers, and idolaters, and whoever loves and tells lies.

"I, Jesus, have sent My Messenger to testify these things to you in the churches. I am the Root and Offspring of David, and the Bright and Morning Star."

The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" Let anyone who is listening say, "Come!" Let him who is thirsty come. And whoever is willing, let him drink freely of the water of life.

I warn every man who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If any man adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book.

And if any man subtracts from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will subtract his portion out of the Book of Life, and out of the holy city, and from the things written in this book.

He who bears witness to these things says, "Indeed, I am coming quickly!" Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Sixty-three

Chapter 63 Historical texts
Bible texts

After Domitian had ruled fifteen years, on the very day he died Marcus Cocceius Nerva immediately succeeded to the empire; on the assassination of Domitian, eighteen September, A.D. 96, Nerva succeeded without delay to the sovereign power; but this was chiefly through the influence of Petronius Secundus, commander of the Praetorian cohorts, and of Parthenius, the chamberlain of the palace. Nerva had seen the anarchy that followed from the death of Nero; he knew that hesitating even for a few hours could lead to violent civil strife. Rather than decline the invitation and risk revolts, he accepted. The decision may have been hasty solely to avoid civil war, but neither the Senate nor Nerva appears to have been involved in the conspiracy against Domitian.

Emperor Marcus Cocceius Nerva was an old man when he came to power in A.D. 96, following the death of the tyrannical Domitian at the hands of an assassin. This thirteenth Roman emperor, noted for his kindness to the early Christians, was born at Narnia, in Umbria—according to Cassius Dio, born in A.D. 32, making him sixty-three years old, A.D. 32 to 96—or, according to Eutropius, born in A.D. 27, making him sixty-nine years old, A.D. 27 to 96.

His family originally came from Crete; but several of his ancestors rose to the highest dignities in the Roman state. His grandfather, Cocceius Nerva, who was consul seventy-four years before, in A.D. 22, was a great favorite of the emperor Tiberius, and was one of the most celebrated jurists of his age. We learn from Tacitus that he put an end to his own life. His grandson, the same Marcus Cocceius Nerva, is first mentioned as a favorite of Nero, who bestowed upon him triumphal honors thirty years before in A.D. 66, when he was praetor elect. The poetry of Nerva, which is noticed with praise by Pliny and Martial, appears to have recommended him to the favor of Nero. Nerva was employed in offices of trust and honor during the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, but he incurred the suspicion of Domitian, and was banished by him to Tarentum. Then on the assassination of Domitian, eighteen September, A.D. 96, Nerva immediately succeeded to the sovereign power by invitation of the Senate, which he accepted without delay.

Indeed, in some respects the accession was otherwise improbable, since it placed the Empire under the control of a feeble sexagenarian and long-time Flavian supporter with close ties to the unpopular Domitian. Still, Nerva had proven to be a capable senator, one with political connections and an ability to negotiate. In addition, he had no children, thus ensuring that the state would not become his hereditary possession. Although he appeared to be an unlikely candidate because of his age and weak health, Nerva was considered a safe choice precisely because he was old and childless. Furthermore, he had close connections with the Flavian dynasty and commanded the respect of a substantial part of the Senate.

In many respects, Nerva was the right man, and at the right time. His immediate accession following Domitian’s brutal assassination prevented anarchy and civil war, while his advanced years, poor health and moderate views were precisely the attributes necessary for a government that offered a transitional bridge between Domitian’s murderously tumultuous reign and the emperorships of the stable rulers to follow.

Nerva was immediately accorded the title Imperator Nerva Caesar Augustus. Following the accession of Nerva as emperor, the Senate passed damnatio memoriae on Domitian: his coins and statues were melted, his arches were torn down and his name was erased from all public records. The Roman Senate, according to the writers that record the history of those days, voted that the honors of Domitian should be cancelled and annulled by decree, and those whom he had unjustly banished should return to their homes and have their property restored to them. In many instances, existing portraits of Domitian, such as those found on the Cancelleria Reliefs, were simply recarved to fit the likeness of Nerva. This allowed quick production of new images and recycling of previous material. In addition, the vast palace which Domitian had erected on the Palatine Hill, known as the Flavian Palace, was renamed the “House of the People”, and Nerva himself took up residence in Vespasian’s former villa in the Gardens of Sallust.

Revenge of the Senate on the emperor Domitian would come in the form of an aristocratically based literary tradition that never missed an opportunity to factually vilify thoroughly both emperor and his rule. The Senate’s enthusiastic support for the damning of Domitian’s memory was no surprise to the people. Placing the situation in its proper context, however, by comparison, the emperor Claudius during his reign from A.D. 41 to 54 had executed thirty-five senators and up to three hundred equestrians, yet for all of that he was still deified by the Senate and declared a Divus, a god!

This body of men who deified emperors and decreed the return from exile and restoration of property to those whom Domitian had unjustly banished could not restore life to those he had slain and return them from the dead.

But Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple of his office from the assassins of Domitian before he discovered that his own feeble age was not able to eliminate the torrent of public disturbances which had multiplied under the long tyranny of his predecessor. His mild disposition was respected by decent Romans; but the degenerate Romans, the common, or vulgar, mob of Rome, required a more vigorous character than he could provide—they needed a different man whose overriding justice should strike terror into the guilty, a quality he lacked.

On taking office, Nerva made immediate changes. He ordered the palace of Domitian to be renamed the House of the People, while he himself resided at the Horti Sallustiani, the favorite residence of Vespasian.

The change of government was most welcome particularly to the senators, who had been harshly persecuted during Domitian’s reign. More significantly, he took an oath before the Senate that he would refrain from executing its members. As an immediate gesture of goodwill toward his supporters, Nerva publicly swore that no senators would be put to death as long as he remained in office. Believing in the Republic more than the Empire, Nerva vowed never to assassinate a senator, and he kept his word. He also released those who had been imprisoned by Domitian and recalled exiles not found guilty of serious crimes. He called an end to trials based on treason, released those who had been imprisoned under these charges, and granted amnesty to many who had been exiled. All properties which had been confiscated by Domitian were returned to their respective families. In addition, pantomime performances, suppressed by Domitian, were restored.

Despite Nerva’s measures to remain popular with the Senate and the Roman people, support for the dead Domitian remained strong in the army, which had called for his deification immediately after the assassination, for they had been allowed by Domitian to indulge in excesses. In an attempt to appease the soldiers of the Praetorian Guard, Nerva had dismissed their prefect Titus Petronius Secundus, who was one of the chief conspirators against Domitian, and replaced him with a former commander, Casperius Aelianus. But his impartial administration of justice met with little favor from the Praetorian cohorts, who had been allowed by Domitian to indulge in excesses of every kind with impunity.

Likewise, the generous donativum bestowed on the soldiers following his accession was expected to swiftly silence any protests against the violent regime change. However, the Praetorians considered these measures insufficient, and demanded the execution of Domitian’s assassins.

Nerva refused. Continued dissatisfaction with this state of affairs would ultimately lead to the gravest crisis of Nerva’s reign, as we shall relate.

While the swift transfer of power following Domitian’s death had prevented a civil war from erupting, Nerva’s position as an emperor soon proved too vulnerable, and his benign nature turned toward reluctance to assert his authority.

Nerva still allowed the prosecution of informers by the Senate, a measure that led to chaos. On his accession, he had ordered a halt to treason trials, but at the same time allowed the prosecution of informers by the Senate to continue. This measure led to chaos, as everyone acted in his own interests while trying to settle scores with personal enemies: the consul Fronto was led to make the famous remark that ultimately Domitian’s tyranny was preferable to Nerva’s anarchy.

Nerva’s reign was more concerned with the continuation of an existing political system than with the birth of a new age. Indeed, his economic policies, his relationship with the Senate, and the men whom he chose to govern and to offer him advice all show signs of Flavian influence. Nerva’s major appointments favored men whom he knew and trusted, and who had long served and been rewarded by the Flavians.

A number of elder statesmen emerged from retirement to help him govern the empire. The keynote of Nerva’s regime was a skillfully propagandized renunciation of the terrorist means by which Domitian had imposed his tyranny, and in Italy an agrarian reform measure and the last lex populi, “law of the people”, in Roman history were implemented.

Modern historians have characterized Nerva as a well-intentioned but weak and ineffectual ruler. In the area of economic administration Nerva, like Domitian, was keen on maintaining a balanced budget. The Roman Senate enjoyed renewed liberties under his rule, but Nerva’s mismanagement of the state finances and lack of authority over the army ultimately brought Rome near the edge of a significant crisis. Before long, Nerva’s expenditures strained the economy of Rome and necessitated the formation of a special commission of economy to drastically reduce their costs.

Nerva’s major appointments favored men whom he knew and trusted, and who had long served and been rewarded by the Flavians. Typical was Sextus Julius Frontinus. A consul under Vespasian and governor of Britain twenty years earlier, Frontinus came out of retirement to become curator of the water supply, an office that had long been subject to abuse and mismanagement. He helped to put an end to the abuses and published a significant work on Rome’s water supply, De aquis urbis Romae. Similarly, the emperor’s own amici were often senators with Flavian ties, men who, by virtue of their links to the previous regime, were valuable to Nerva for what they knew. Thus do we find the likes of Aulus Didius Gallus Fabricius Veiento, one of Domitian’s counselors of ill-repute, seated next to Nerva at an imperial dinner.

Nerva also sought to involve the Senate in his government, but this was not entirely successful. Nerva was less willing to consult the Senate as a whole. In many cases he preferred the opinions of his own consilium, and was less submissive than many senators would have liked. This attitude may have been responsible for hostile discontent among several senators. He continued to rely largely on Friends and advisors that were known and trusted, and by maintaining friendly relations with the pro-Domitianic faction of the Senate, he incurred hostility which may have been the cause for at least one conspiracy against his life.

The following year, early in A.D. 97, a conspiracy led by the senator Gaius Calpurnius Piso Crassus Frugi Licinianus failed, but once again Nerva refused to put the conspirators to death, much to the disapproval of the Senate.

In early 97, after appointing a commission of five consular senators to give advice on reducing expenditures, he proceeded to abolish many sacrifices, races, and games. The most superfluous religious sacrifices, games and horse races were abolished, while new income was generated from Domitian’s former possessions, including the auctioning of ships, estates, and even furniture. Large amounts of money were obtained from Domitian’s silver and gold statues, and similarly, Nerva forbade that similar images be made in his honor; he allowed no gold or silver statues to be made of himself.

Even so, there was some room for municipal expenditure. Having been proclaimed emperor solely on the initiative of the Senate, Nerva had to introduce a number of measures to gain support among the Roman populace. As was the custom by this time, a change of emperor was expected to bring with it a generous payment of gifts and money to the people and the army. Accordingly, a congiarium, a benevolent largess, of seventy-five denarii per head was bestowed on the citizens, while the soldiers of the Praetorian Guard received a donativum which may have amounted to as much as five thousand denarii per person.

Many instances of Nerva’s clemency and liberality are recorded by his contemporary, the younger Pliny. Nerva allowed no senator to be put to death during his reign, and practiced the greatest economy in order to relieve the wants of the poorer citizens. For the urban poor of Italy, to the poorest, Nerva granted allotments of land worth up to sixty million sesterces, and he exempted parents and their children from a five percent inheritance tax. He also made loans to Italian landowners on the condition that they pay interest of five percent to their municipality to support the children of needy families. The one imaginative innovation commonly attributed to Nerva’s government, the system of alimenta, or trusts for the maintenance of poor children in Italy, may have been instead the work of Trajan after him. These alimentary schemes were later extended by emperors Trajan, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. Furthermore, this was followed by a string of economic reforms intended to alleviate the burden of taxation from the most needy Romans. Numerous taxes were remitted and privileges granted to Roman provinces.

Specifically, it is most probable that he abolished the Fiscus Iudaicus, the additional tax which all Jews throughout the Empire had to pay under Domitian and the emperors before him. A somewhat lesser known type of Roman imperial coin that referred to the Jews are sestertii of the emperor Nerva that commemorate the reform of the Fiscus Iudaicus, Jewish Tax; for on the reverse of Nerva’s coins is a palm tree, symbolizing Judea, and by extension Judaism, some accompanied by the legend FISCI IVDAICI CALVMNIA SVBLATA—some of his coins bear the legend FISCI IUDAICI CALUMNIA SUBLATA, which can mean “abolition of malicious prosecution regarding the Jewish tax”. It may also be translated: “The removal of the wrongful accusation of the Fiscus Iudaicus.” Although there has been some debate as to the translation of this stamped legend, it refers to the end of abuses of the Jewish Tax that were rampant under Domitian.

The significance of the meaning of the coin can be more precisely understood as referring to the charge of atheism and the harsh prosecutions that resulted in death, or the confiscation of property, or both, of that second group of people prosecuted by the tax under Domitian, the Jewish sympathizers and Gentile Christians, as these appear to have been the newly added victims in Domitian’s reign.

When Nerva came to power, he sought to bring an end to the excesses of Domitian’s reign and represented his predecessor as a tyrant. This is readily apparent on Nerva’s other coins. The most conspicuous ones are his gold, silver and bronze coins which bear an image of Libertas, Liberty, holding a rod and the cap of a freed slave, both implements used in the Roman ceremony to free slaves: imagery implying his message that the Roman people are now freed from Domitian.

One of Nerva’s specific reforms, also celebrated by the Fiscus Iudaicus coins, was to forbid people from accusing others of leading a Jewish life. The consequence of Nerva’s reform means that the Roman state prosecuted the tax under a purely religious definition of Judaism, rather than an ethnic one. And it was Nerva’s reform of the tax that led to sharper distinctions between Jew and Christian, based on their beliefs. There is some irony in the fact that Nerva’s Fiscus Iudaicus coinage, celebrating his reforms, was produced in small numbers and targeted a small segment of the Roman population, although the ultimate result of his reform was the growing distinction between Jew and Christian. As informers accusing people of being Jewish supporters and sympathizers stood to receive part of the proceeds after a successful trial, and accusation was also an expedient way to harm one’s political enemies, it was evidently the wealthy and politically powerful class of the Roman elite who had been subjected to the expanded abuses of this tax under Domitian. Accusations of leading a Jewish lifestyle, prohibited by Nerva’s reform, are distinctly different from accusations of actually being a Jew.

The mild and equable administration of Nerva is acknowledged and praised by all ancient writers, and formed a striking contrast to the bloody, sanguinary rule of his predecessor. He reduced taxes, brought exiles home, according to some writers he ended persecution of Jews and Christians and generally boosted Roman morale by his mild behavior. He discouraged all informers, recalled the exiles from banishment, relieved the people from some oppressive taxes, and granted toleration to the Christians.

It was at this time also that the Apostle John returned after his banishment to exile on the island of Patmos and resumed his residence at Ephesus, according to an ancient Christian tradition. A true account of John the Apostle preserved in memory says that after the tyrant’s death, he returned from the island of Patmos to Ephesus and used to go, when asked, to the neighboring Gentile districts to appoint Episcopes, reconcile Christian assemblies, or ordain someone designated by the Spirit. Then was fulfilled the word spoken to him in the exile by the angel,

“You must prophesy again over many peoples, nations, languages, and kings.”

Nerva is traditionally said to be the first of the Five Good Emperors, five successive rulers under whom the Roman Empire, according to contemporaries, “was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of wisdom and virtue”, from A.D. 96 to 180. Nevertheless, compared to his successors, he was an ineffective ruler. Nerva may have indeed truly lacked the necessary qualifications for a successful reign: more recent historians have concluded from all available evidence that Nerva’s real talents were in fact ill-suited to the emperorship.

Nerva, it would seem, was not, apparently, a great orator, and some historians and researchers have the impression that he functioned better in small groups, where his generally calm approach to problems will have impressed people. But whenever such a mild, unaggressive man takes on an important administrative job, the result is usually quite appalling, as history has shown. Rome was, indeed, spared catastrophe under his rule; but for all the fact that near-contemporary writers were prudent about what they said and how they said it, Nerva’s administration was fairly inept.

It was not long before the assassination of Domitian began to work against the new emperor. In October 97 these tensions came to a head, when the Praetorian Guards, dissatisfied that Domitian had not been deified after his death, and enraged at the loss of their benefactor and favorite, mutinied under Casperius Aelianus; the Praetorian Guard, led by Casperius Aelianus, laid siege to the Imperial Palace and took Nerva hostage. (He was either sixty-four or sixty-nine years old.) Taking the aging emperor as hostage, they demanded that Nerva hand over Domitian’s murderers. He was forced to submit to their demands, agreeing to hand over those responsible for Domitian’s death. They compelled Nerva to deliver into their hands Parthenius and their own commander Petronius, both of whom they put to death: Domitian’s former chamberlain, Titus Petronius Secundus, and Parthenius, were sought out and killed. And the emperor not only relented, but was forced to give a public speech of thanks to the mutineers for their actions; even giving a speech thanking the rebellious Praetorians. Nerva was unharmed in this assault, but his authority was damaged beyond recovery.

The situation was further aggravated by the absence of a clear successor, made more pressing because of Nerva’s old age and sickness. He had no natural children of his own and only distant relatives, who were unsuited for political office. A successor would have to be chosen from among the governors or generals in the empire and it appears that, by 97, Nerva was considering the legal adoption of Marcus Cornelius Nigrinus Curiatius Maternus, the powerful governor of Syria, as his son. This was covertly opposed by those who supported the more popular military commander Marcus Ulpius Traianus, commonly known as Trajan, a general of the armies at the German frontier.

Nerva had in fact little choice in regard to his successor. He realized that his position was no longer tenable without the support of an heir who had the approval of both the army and the people. Faced with a major crisis, he desperately needed the support of a man who could restore his damaged reputation. The only candidate with sufficient military experience, consular ancestry, and connections was Traian, Trajan. Any assertion that Nerva established, as if set by precedent, a tradition among the Five Good Emperors of succession through adoption has found little support among modern historians.

The mutiny led by Casperius Aelianus, as seen by some, was apparently never intended as a coup, but a calculated attempt to put pressure on the emperor. Shortly thereafter, he announced the adoption of Trajan as his successor. His authority compomised, Nerva used the occasion of a victory in Pannonia over the Germans in late October 97 to announce the adoption of Marcus Ulpius Traianus, governor of Upper Germany, as his successor. The excesses of his guards had convinced the physically weak and aging Nerva that the government of the Roman empire required greater energy both of body and mind than he possessed, and he accordingly adopted Trajan, who possessed both vigor and ability to direct public affairs, as his successor.

On twenty-seven October 97, he adopted Trajan as his son, making him emperor apparent, and with this decision he all but abdicated empire. Eusebius regarded the adoption of Trajan by Nerva as the actual beginning of the years of Trajan’s emperorship. Trajan, absent with his army, is said to have been unaware the adoption ceremony was taking place in Rome at the temple of Jupiter. The new Caesar was immediately acclaimed imperator and granted the tribunicia potestas, the tribunician power. Nerva’s public announcement of the adoption settled succession as fact; he allowed no time to oppose his decision. From the German victory, Nerva assumed the epithet Germanicus and conferred the title on Trajan as well, Marcus Ulpius Traianus Germanicus. The adoption of Trajan expanded his power base with a respected, reliable general as his successor. Trajan was formally bestowed with the title of Caesar; in Cassius Dio’s words:

“Thus Trajan became Caesar and later emperor, although there were relatives of Nerva living. But Nerva did not esteem family relationship above the safety of the State, nor was he less inclined to adopt Trajan because the latter was a Spaniard instead of an Italian or Italot, inasmuch as no foreigner had previously held the Roman sovereignty; for he believed in looking at a man’s ability rather than at his nationality.”

By this action Nerva evinced clearly that he possessed good sense and a noble character.

Due to the lack of written sources on this period, much of Nerva’s life has remained obscure. Both Cassius Dio and Aurelius Victor emphasize his wisdom and moderation, with Dio commending his decision to adopt Trajan as his heir.

A more comprehensive text, presumed to describe the life of Nerva in closer detail, is the Histories, by the contemporary historian Tacitus. In the introduction to his biography of his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola however, Tacitus speaks highly of Nerva, describing his reign as follows:

“with this, the dawn of a most happy age, Nerva Caesar blended things once irreconcilable, sovereignty and freedom”.

Because he reigned only briefly, Nerva’s own public works were few, completing instead projects which had been initiated under Flavian rule. Nerva also built granaries, made repairs to the Colosseum when the Tiber flooded, and continued the program of road building and repairs inaugurated under the Flavians. Projects which had been initiated under Flavian rule included extensive repairs to the Roman road system and the expansion of the aqueducts. This second program was administered by the former consul Sextus Julius Frontinus, who helped to put an end to abuses and later published a significant work on Rome’s water supply, De Aquis Urbis Romae. The only major landmarks constructed under Nerva were a granary, known as the Horrea Nervae, and a small Imperial Forum begun by Domitian, which linked the Forum of Augustus to the temple of Peace. Little remains.

In the military realm, Nerva established veterans’ colonies in Africa, a practice that was continued by the emperor Trajan after him. Normal military privileges were continued and some auxiliary units assumed the epithet Nervia or Nerviana. Beyond these details, we have little information, and any military action that may have occurred while Nerva was emperor is known to be sketchy at best.

At this time Clement still ruled the Christian Assembly of Rome as head of the Roman Assembly, being also the third who followed after Peter and Paul in the list of Episcopes who held the Episcopate there in Rome: Linus was the first, and after him came Anencletus as the second, and Clement was third, who now died in A.D. 97 and was succeeded by Evaristus, who was the fourth to succeed to Peter. According to Eusebius, Clement the Episcopos of Rome had committed the Episcopal government of the Assembly of Rome to Evarestus, and departed this life after he had superintended the Teaching of the divine word nine years in all, which we understand to be A.D. mid-88 through into 97. Others indicate perhaps seven years, from A.D. 91 into 97. The fact of the succession of shepherds by name is historically certain, even if the years are not.

On one January A.D. 98, as a reward for his service in administering the expansion of the aqueducts and helping put an end to abuses, Frontinus was named consul for the second time, and Nerva also made Trajan his consular colleague in 98, and Trajan shared the consulship with him—indeed, in order to secure the succession, Nerva in 98 took as his imperial colleague, Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, Trajan, his adopted son, governor of one of the German provinces, and associated him with himself in the government, the man who became emperor on Nerva’s death.

On one January A.D. 98, the beginning of his fourth consulship, Nerva suffered a stroke during a private audience. Shortly thereafter, three weeks later, he was struck by a fever. By early 98 Nerva, gravely weakened, dedicated the forum that Domitian had built to connect the Forum of Augustus with the Forum of Peace. It became known as the Forum of Nerva. Then, on twenty-five January 98, according to Victor, or twenty-seven or twenty-eight January 98, according to Dio, after a reign of sixteen months and nine days, Nerva died at his villa in the Gardens of Sallust; and Trajan became emperor.

Imperator Nerva Germanicus Caesar Augustus had reigned a little more than over a year when he died.

The three years of Nerva’s reign were A.D. 96, 97, 98; eighteen September 96 through twenty-seven or twenty-eight January 98, sixteen months and nine days, falling within three calendar years. It is not wrong by ancient standards of expression to say that he reigned three years, but by more recent historical standards this mode of expression is misleading, for uninstructed readers assume wrongly that three years means thirty-six months; but Nerva only reigned in three years, 96, 97, 98, and he reigned sixteen months and nine days, a little more than over a year when he died. He was succeeded by Trajan, the third of those known as the Five Good Emperors.

Eusebius the historian, dismissing Nerva with the words, “After Nerva had reigned a little more than a year, he was succeeded by Trajan”, regards Trajan as having the actual reign of empire those three years A.D. 96 into 98 after the death of Domitian; for he says in the third book of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter thirty-four, referring to the reign of Trajan,

In the third year of the above-mentioned reign, Clement, Episcopos of Rome, committed the Episcopal charge to Evarestus, and departed this life, after superintending the preaching of the divine word nine years.”

This is no discrepancy or error. Nerva had already conferred on Trajan the title of Caesar in October of 97, the same year Nerva was made emperor. Recall that the civil year in ancient calendars begins with the autumnal equinox in September, so that Trajan’s “first year” began within the calendar period extending from the autumnal equinox, twenty-two September 95, up to the autumnal equinox of twenty-two September 96, the period within which Domitian died and Nerva acceded, eighteen September 96, four days before the equinox at the year’s end; for early in 96-97 Nerva had already considered legal adoption of a successor as his son; then Nerva died months after the autumnal equinox of twenty-two September 97 in January of 98 and thus “the third year of the above-mentioned” Trajan’s reign (dismissing Nerva) was A.D. 97-98 by Eusebius’s reckoning, according to the ancient calendar; this also places the death of Clement at or near the end of A.D. 97, “in the third year of the above-mentioned reign”. Eusebius thus expressed indirectly his opinion of the ineffectiveness of Nerva’s rule and the dominant influence of Trajan’s already significant power within the Roman military and his reputation within the Praetorian Guard at the time of Domitian’s death.

From his headquarters at Cologne, Trajan insisted that Nerva’s ashes be placed in the mausoleum of Augustus and asked the Senate to vote on his deification. He was deified by the Senate, and his ashes were laid to rest in the Mausoleum of Augustus.

Nerva was succeeded without incident by his adopted son Trajan, Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, governor of one of the German provinces, who became emperor on Nerva’s death; who was greeted by the Roman populace with much enthusiasm. When he entered Rome it was on foot with a show of humility as if he were a private citizen.

According to Cassius Dio, however, on the occasion of Trajan’s accession, the prefect of the Guard responsible for the mutiny against Nerva, Casperius Aelianus, was dismissed.

We are further told, according to Pliny the Younger, that Trajan dedicated a temple to Nerva in honor of him, yet no trace of it has ever been found; nor in the wake of his death was a commemorative series of coins issued for the Deified Nerva, but only later, ten years after his death. Two modern statues which commemorate Nerva can be found in towns associated with him. There is an equestrian statue in Gloucester, England, a town which was founded in his honor. It is at the entrance to Southgate Street. There is also a statue at his rumored birthplace, Narni in Italy, at Cocceio Nerva street.

His place in Roman history has been summarized as a necessary, but tumultuous temporary emergency measure before the accession of the Trajanic-Antonine dynasties. The choosing of an elderly man in poor health, presumably near death, may be evidence of such a transitional purpose in the minds of the leaders of the Senate. Moreover, even the one major public work completed during his reign, the Forum of Nerva, later ultimately became known as the Forum Transitorium, or transitional forum.

Trajan’s first winter, the winter of A.D. 97-98, as ruler of the far-flung empire, he spent not in Rome, but in Dacia, completing a military campaign.

Though Nerva had set at liberty those who had been condemned under the intolerant reign of Domitian because they had apostatized from the pagan faith of Rome and adopted the new religion of Jesus Christ, Nerva had failed to secure to his Christian subjects any lasting benefits, since our religion was not recognized by any public act as a religio licita; and this may more easily explain the severe persecutions under Trajan, the second of those called the Five Good Emperors. The holy doctrine of Christianity under the influence of the Holy Spirit had spread considerably, having peacefully been diffused under Nerva; and as soon as Trajan was seated on the throne, the fury of the enemies of the Christian Assembly, which had been held in check by Nerva, broke forth with increased violence under Trajan and the genius of the emperor.

In the Christian Assembly, during the first year of Trajan’s reign, and during the first year of the episcopacy of Evaristus in Rome, the Presbyter Kerdo, Cerdo, also called Cerdon and Kedron, succeeded the Episcopos Abilius, Avilius, who, after leading the Assembly of Alexandria, had ruled the Christian Assembly of Alexandria as Episcopos for thirteen years during the imperial reigns of Domitian and Nerva. He was the third in charge there who presided over that Assembly after Annianus, who was the first: Annianus, then Abilius, then Cerdon. At that time, before Cerdon’s elevation to that dignity, according to Eusebius, Clement still ruled the Assembly of Rome as head of the Roman Assembly, being also the third in the list of Episcopes who held the Episcopate there in Rome, who followed after Peter and Paul: Linus was the first, and after him came Anencletus as the second, and Clement was third, who died in A.D. 97 and was succeeded by Evaristus, who was the fourth.

After Nero and Domitian, under the emperor Trajan a persecution in separate places was incited against us in certain cities as a result of a popular revolt. We are informed also that Symeon, the son of Clopas, who was the second Episcopos of the Assembly of Jerusalem, died because of his witness. Hegesippus the historian also testifies to this fact. In speaking of certain heretics in his writing he adds that Symeon at this time was accused by them of being Christian; and though he was tortured in various ways for many days, he astonished both even the judge himself and his attendants to the highest degree; and finally he was terminated with sufferings like those of our Lord.

But it is better to hear Hegesippus himself, who gives an account of it as follows:

“Among these heretics”, he says, “some informed against Symeon, the son of Clopas, that he was a descendant of David and a Christian; and thus he suffered as a witness, when he was one hundred and twenty years of age, during the reign of emperor Trajan and the governorship of Atticus.”

And the same writer says that when a search was made by Domitian for the descendants of David, his accusers were also taken into custody as descendants of that family. One might reasonably assert that Symeon was one of those witnesses who bore testimony to what they had both heard and seen of the Lord, if we judge from the length of his life, and from the fact that the Gospels make mention of Mary, the wife of Clopas, whose son was Symeon, as we have already demonstrated.

But the same historian says there were others also, the offspring of one of those regarded as brothers of the Lord, of the house and family of David, whose name was Judas, that is, Jude, and who, after they had professed and borne testimony on behalf of faith in Christ before Domitian, then lived on into the same reign of Trajan.

He writes this:

“There are those also who came and took the lead over the whole Assembly as witnesses and kindred of the Lord. And when profound peace was being established throughout the Assembly, they continued to the days of the Emperor Trajan, and to the time the above-mentioned Symeon, relative of the Lord and son of Clopas, was ambushed by the heretics, and was himself also accused for the same cause before the governor Atticus, having similar dignity. And after being tortured for many days he died a martyr with such firmness of faith, that all marveled, including even the proconsul, that a man at the age of one hundred and twenty years could endure such torture. And finally he was ordered to be crucified.”

The same author, while recounting the events of that period, also records that the Assembly of the Lord up to that time had continued to be a pure and uncorrupted virgin; while if there were any who attempted to corrupt the sound norm of the doctrine of the saving Gospel, they lay skulking, up to then concealed in dark hiding places.

All of the Presbyters in Asia associated with John, the Lord’s disciple, testify that John Taught them the Truth, for he remained with them to the time of Trajan, and the Assembly at Ephesus is a true witness of the apostolic tradition. Through him the Holy Spirit expounded the true meaning of the Logos of God, His Truth, Intelligence and Wisdom.

Philo, a Hellenized Jew who lived from 20 B.C. to A.D. 50, a Jewish philosopher and Teacher, had used the Greek philosophical term Logos to mean an intermediary divine being, or demiurge. Philo accepted the Platonic concept of a distinction between imperfect matter, which is visible, and perfect Form, and therefore embraced the conclusion that intermediary beings were necessary to bridge the enormous gap between God and the material world; and he Taught that the Logos was the highest of these intermediary beings. In his writings Philo calls this intermediary “the first-born of God”; he also writes that “the Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated”. He asserts that the reality at the heart of Plato’s concept of the Theory of Forms is located within the Logos, but that the Logos also acted on behalf of God in the physical world. In particular, Philo identifies the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament with the Logos; he also Taught that the Logos was God’s instrument in the creation of the universe. But his understanding was defective. Men were seeking God, groping in the darkness of intellect, in the hope that they might feel after him and perhaps even find him.

After him, the Apostle Paul by the Spirit of the Lord revealed even more clearly the doctrine of Jesus the Anointed One as the incarnation of the Word of God in his letters to the Galatians, the Ephesians and the Philippians. The Holy Spirit also in the beginning of the Letter to the Hebrews declares the same Truth. The Word of God is the One Only God eternally begotten in the same Spirit of the Lord in the bosom of the Father, the one true God.

The Apostle John also answered those who revered John the Baptist as a prophet, but had not accepted Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, by emphasizing the testimony that John the Baptizer himself had given about Jesus; for he together with Andrew had followed John and heard his testimony; and he gave his testimony about the true identity of Jesus as the Word of God in opposition to the Gnostic doctrines of Mandaeanism many of them had adopted, and still profess to this day.

John, it is said, had used only the spoken word before he finally took to writing for the following reason. The three written Gospels then in general circulation also came into John’s hands. He welcomed them, it is said, and affirmed their accuracy, but noted that the narrative lacked only the account of what Christ had done at the beginning of his mission.

They say, then, that for this reason John was urged to record in his own Gospel the Savior’s deeds during the period passed over in silence by the earlier Evangelists; that is, the events before the Baptizer’s imprisonment. Thus John records what Christ did before the Baptist’s imprisonment, while the other three tell of events following. Once this is understood, the Gospels no longer seem to disagree, since John covers Christ’s early deeds and the others his later.

Of the undisputed writings of this Apostle, his Gospel, read by all the assemblies under heaven, must be recognized first of all.

The Gospel According to John, chapters 1 through 10
The Gospel According to John, chapters 11 through 21

This Gospel, which is known to all the congregations of the assemblies under heaven, must be acknowledged in the first place as genuine. But with good reason have the ancients placed it in the fourth position, after the other three Gospels; and this may be made evident in the following way.

Those great and truly divine men, the Apostles of Christ, were purified in their life, and adorned with every virtue of the soul; but they were uncultivated in speech. They were indeed confident in their trust in the divine and wonder-working power granted to them by the Savior, but they did not know how, nor did they attempt to proclaim the doctrines of their Teacher in studied and artistic language; but employing in their writings only the demonstration, the argument, of the divine Spirit, Who worked with them, and the wonder-working power of Christ, which was displayed through them, they published the knowledge of the kingdom of heaven throughout the whole world, paying little attention to the standards of composition of written works.

This they did because they were assisted in their ministry by one greater than man. Paul, for instance, who surpassed them all in vigor of expression and in richness of thought, committed to writing no more than the briefest epistles, although he had innumerable mysterious matters to communicate, for he had attained even to the sights of the third heaven, had been carried to the very paradise of God, and had been deemed worthy to hear unspeakable utterances there. And the rest of the followers of our Savior, the twelve Apostles, the seventy disciples, and countless others besides, were not ignorant of these things. Nevertheless, of all the disciples of the Lord, only Matthew and John have left us written memorials, and they, tradition says, were led to write only under the pressure of necessity.

For Matthew, who had at first preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other peoples, was the first who committed his Gospel to writing in his native tongue, and thus compensated for the loss of his presence those whom he was obliged to leave. And when Mark and Luke after him had already published their Gospels, they say that John, who had employed all his time in proclaiming the Gospel orally, finally proceeded to write for the following reason. The three Gospels already mentioned having come into the hands of all and into his own too, they say that he accepted them and bore witness to their truthfulness; but that there was lacking in them an account of the deeds done by Christ at the beginning of his ministry. And this indeed is true. For it is evident from the number of the observances of Passover in their writings that the three Evangelists recorded only the deeds done by the Savior for about three years after the imprisonment of John the Baptist, and indicated this in the beginning of their account. For Matthew, after the forty days’ fast and the temptation which followed it, indicates the chronology of his work when he says:

“Now when he heard that John was delivered up he withdrew from Judea into Galilee.”

Mark likewise says:

“Now after John was delivered up Jesus came into Galilee.”

And Luke, before commencing his account of the deeds of Jesus, similarly marks the time, when he says that Herod,

“adding to all the evil deeds which he had done, shut up John in prison.”

Therefore, it is said that the Apostle John, being asked to do it, for this reason gave in his Gospel an account of the period which had been omitted by the earlier evangelists, and of the deeds done by the Savior during that period; that is, of those which were done before the imprisonment of the Baptist. And this is indicated by him, they say, in the following words:

“This beginning of miracles did Jesus”;

and again when he refers to the Baptist, in the midst of the deeds of Jesus, as still baptizing in Ænon near Salim; where he states the matter clearly in the words:

“For John was not yet cast into prison.”

Accordingly, John in his Gospel, records the deeds of Christ which were performed before the Baptist was cast into prison, but the other three Evangelists mention the events which happened after that time. One who understands this can no longer believe the Gospels are at odds with one another, considering the fact that the Gospel according to John contains the first acts of Christ, while the others give an account of the latter part of his life. And John quite naturally omitted the genealogy of our Savior according to the flesh, because it had already been given by Matthew and Luke, and he began with the doctrine of his divinity, and included his promise of the giving of his flesh and blood as food and drink for eternal life to those who believe him, doctrines which had seemingly been reserved for him, as their superior, by the divine Spirit of God, doctrines which many had begun to deny, which he had heard Taught by the Lord himself, and knew were truth. These things may be enough, which we have said concerning the Gospel of John.

As for Luke, in the beginning of his Gospel, he himself states the reasons which led him to write it. He states that since many others had more rashly undertaken to compose a narrative of the events of which he had acquired perfect knowledge, he himself, feeling the necessity of freeing us from their uncertain opinions, delivered in his own Gospel an accurate account of those events in regard to which he had learned the full truth, being aided by his intimacy and his stay with Paul and by his acquaintance with the rest of the Apostles.

But of the writings of John, not only his Gospel, but also the first of his epistles, have been accepted without dispute both now and in ancient times. But the other two were disputed.

In regard to the Apocalypse, the Revelation, the opinions of most men were still divided, as over several of the other sacred scriptures, for sixteen hundred years, before the matter was finally settled definitively. But his Gospel and the first of his epistles were accepted without dispute from the beginning.

At this time, the disciple whom Jesus loved, Saint John, the Apostle and Evangelist, following his return from his exile on the island after the death of Domitian, was still living on in Asia Minor, directing and governing the assemblies there in that region. And sufficient proof that he was still alive to that time may be established by the testimony of two witnesses, who are known to have maintained the sound orthodox doctrine of the Church, the Christian Assembly, and should therefore be credited as worthy of trust; and indeed, such were Irenæus and Clement of Alexandria.

Irenæus, in the second book of his work Against Heresies, writes as follows:

“And all the Presbyters that associated with John the disciple of the Lord in Asia bear witness that John delivered it to them. For he remained among them unto the time of Trajan.”

And in the third book of the same work he attests the same thing in the following words:

“But the Assembly in Ephesus also, which was founded by Paul, and where John remained unto the time of Trajan, is a faithful witness of the apostolic tradition.”

Clement of Rome, in his book entitled What Rich Man can be saved?, likewise indicates the time.

An encyclical letter is ascribed to Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist, which is called the First Epistle of John. He rejects the doctrine of those called docetists who deny that Jesus truly came in the flesh, that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and he rejects the lawlessness of antinomianism.


That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life; and the life was revealed, and we have seen, and testify, and declare to you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was revealed to us; that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us. Yes, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we write these things to you, that our joy may be fulfilled.
This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not tell the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he is the expiating sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.
This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments. One who says, “I know him,” and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, God’s love has most certainly been perfected in him. This is how we know that we are in him: he who says he remains in him ought himself also to walk just like he walked.
Brothers, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, I write a new commandment to you, which is true in him and in you; because the darkness is passing away, and the true light already shines. He who says he is in the light and hates his brother, is in the darkness even now. He who loves his brother remains in the light, and there is no occasion for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in the darkness, and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
I write to you, my little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.
I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, my little children, because you know the Father.
I have written to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.
I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God remains in you, and you have overcome the evil one.
Do not love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not the Father’s, but is the world’s. The world is passing away with its lusts, but he who does God’s will remains forever.
Little children, these are the end times, and as you heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen. By this we know that it is the final hour. They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have continued with us. But they left, that they might be revealed that none of them belong to us. You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Anointed One? This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son, the same does not have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also.
Therefore, as for you, let that remain in you which you heard from the beginning. If that which you heard from the beginning remains in you, you also will remain in the Son, and in the Father. This is the promise which he promised us, the eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who would lead you astray. As for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you do not need for anyone to Teach you. But as his anointing Teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it Taught you, you will remain in him. Now, my little children, remain in him, that when he appears, we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world does not know us, because it did not know him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet revealed what we will be. But we know that, when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is. Everyone who has this hope set on him purifies himself, even as he is pure. Everyone who sins also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away our sins, and in him is no sin. Whoever remains in him does not practice sin. Whoever sins has not seen him and does not know him.
Little children, let no one lead you astray. He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed: that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever is born of God does not practice sin, because his seed remains in him; and he cannot practice sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the Devil. Whoever does not do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; unlike Cain, who was of the evil one, and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who does not love his brother remains in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and closes his heart of compassion against him, how does the love of God remain in him?
My little children, let us not love in word only, or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and persuade our hearts before him, because if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness toward God; and whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight. This is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he commanded. He who keeps his commandments remains in him, and he in him. By this we know that he remains in us, by the Spirit which he gave us.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit who does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that it comes. Now it is in the world already. You are of God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak of the world, and the world hears them.
We are of God. He who knows God listens to Us. He who is not of God does not listen to Us. By this We know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us.
By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God. We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this love has been made perfect among us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, even so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? This commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should also love his brother.
Whoever believes that Jesus is the Anointed One has been born of God. Whoever loves the Father also loves the child who is born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. His commandments are not grievous. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: your faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three who testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and the three agree as one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is God’s testimony which he has testified concerning his Son. He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. The testimony is this, that God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has the life. He who does not have God’s Son does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
This is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he listens to us. And if we know that he listens to us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him.
If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for those who sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death. I do not say that he should make a request concerning this. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death. We know that whoever is born of God does not practice sin, but he who was born of God keeps himself, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding, that we know him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
Little children, keep yourselves from idols.


The following letters are also ascribed to John.


The Presbyter, to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not I only, but also all those who know the truth, for the truth’s sake, which remains in us, and it will be with us forever: Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
I rejoice greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, even as we have been commanded by the Father. Now I beg you, dear lady, not as though I wrote to you a new commandment, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. This is love, that we should walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment, even as you heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist. Watch yourselves, that we do not lose the things which we have accomplished, but that we receive a full reward. Whoever transgresses and does not remain in the Teaching of Christ, does not have God. He who remains in the Teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you, and does not bring this Teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not welcome him, for he who welcomes him participates in his evil deeds.
Having many things to write to you, I do not want to do so with paper and ink, but I hope to come to you, and to speak face to face, that Our joy may be made full.
The children of your chosen sister greet you. Amen.


The Presbyter to Gaius the beloved, whom I love in truth.
Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be healthy, even as your soul prospers. For I rejoiced greatly when brothers came and testified about your truth, even as you walk in truth. I have no greater joy than this: to hear about my children walking in truth.
Beloved, you do a faithful work in whatever you accomplish for those who are brothers and strangers. They have testified about your love before the Assembly. You will do well to send them forward on their journey in a way worthy of God, because for the sake of the Name they went out, taking nothing from the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.
I wrote to the Assembly, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what We say. Therefore if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing Us with wicked words. Not content with this, neither does he himself receive the brothers, and those who would, he forbids and throws out of the Assembly. Beloved, do not imitate that which is evil, but that which is good. He who does good is of God. He who does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has the testimony of all, and of the truth itself; yes, We also testify, and you know that Our testimony is true.
I had many things to write to you, but I am unwilling to write to you with ink and pen; but I hope to see you soon. Then we will speak face to face. Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends by name.


Clement of Rome preserves a narrative concerning John the Apostle which is most attractive to those who enjoy hearing what is beautiful and profitable. Take and read the account which runs as follows:

“Listen to a story, which is not a fiction, but a true narrative concerning John the Apostle, which has been handed down and carefully preserved and treasured as a memorial. For when, after the tyrant was dead, he returned from the isle of Patmos to Ephesus, he went away when called by their invitation to the neighboring territories of the Gentiles, to appoint Episcopes in some places, in other places to institute and set in order whole new assemblies, elsewhere to choose and appoint to the ministry some one of those who were pointed out by the Holy Spirit. When he had come to one of the cities not far away (some sources give the name), and had consoled the brethren in other matters, he finally turned to the Episcopos that had been appointed and ordained, and seeing a youth of fine physique and pleasing appearance, and of passionate temperament, he said, ‘This one I commit to you with all earnestness in the presence of the Assembly and of Christ as witness.’
“And when the Episcopos had accepted the charge and had promised all, he repeated the same injunction with an appeal to the same witnesses, calling on the Assembly and Christ as witnesses, and then departed for Ephesus. The Presbyter then taking to his home the youth committed to him, reared, kept, cherished, and finally baptized him.
“But afterward he relaxed his former care and vigilance, with the idea that in putting on him the seal of the Lord he had given him a perfect protection.”

This is that error of unconditional eternal security. And many even now Teach this careless presumption as a false doctrine of perfect, unconditional and eternal security, believing that they can never fall away from the Lord, or be condemned by him afterward for their willful and unbridled acts of defiant disobedience and sin.

“But some youths of his own age, idle and dissolute fellows, familiar with every kind of evil practices, and accustomed to wickedness, attached themselves to him and corrupted him when he was thus prematurely freed from restraint. At first they led him on and enticed him by costly entertainments; then, going forth at night for robbery and plunder, they took him with them, and finally they encouraged him, so that he should unite with them in some greater crime. He gradually became accustomed to such practices, and on account of the aggressive assertiveness of his character, leaving the right path, and taking the bit in his teeth like an unbridled and powerful stallion, he rushed the more violently down the precipice into the depths. And finally despairing of salvation in God, and renouncing it as now utterly impossible to him, he no longer contemplated merely insignificant trifles, but since he was now lost, once and for all ruined, having committed some great crime, he expected to suffer equal damnation with the rest. Therefore, taking them, and forming a notorious band of robbers, he became a bold bandit-chief, the most violent, most bloody, most cruel of them all.
“Time passed, and some necessity having arisen because of a particular situation, they sent for John. But he, when he had set in order the other matters on account of which he had come, said, ‘O Episcopos, come now, return to us the deposit which both I and Christ committed to you, the Assembly over which you preside being witness.’
“But the Episcopos was at first confounded, thinking that he was being insidiously and falsely charged in regard to funds he had not received; and yet he could neither believe the accusation respecting what he did not have, nor could he disbelieve John. But when he said, ‘I demand the young man, and the soul of the brother,’ the old man, at once groaning deeply and bursting into tears, said, ‘He is dead.’
“ ‘How, and what kind of death?’
“ ‘He is dead to God,’ he said; ‘for he has turned out wicked and self-abandoned, and finally a robber. And now, instead of the Assembly, he is active in the mountain with a band like himself.’
“The Apostle then tore his garments; and beating his head with great lamentation, he said, ‘A fine keeper I left for a brother’s soul! But let a horse now be readied, and some one to show me the way.’
“He rode away from the Assembly just as he was, and coming to the place in the country, he was taken prisoner by the robbers’ posted lookout. He, however, neither fled nor refused to be taken, but cried out, ‘For this purpose did I come; lead me to your captain.’
“He, meanwhile, stood waiting, armed as he was. But when he recognized John approaching, he turned in shame to flee. But the Apostle, forgetting his own advanced age, pursued him with all his might, crying out, ‘Why do you flee, my son, from me, your own defenseless, aged father? Pity me, my son; fear not; you have still hope of life. I will intercede with Christ for you. If necessary, I will willingly endure death for you as the Lord suffered death for us. I will give my life for you. Stop; believe that Christ has sent me.’
“And he, when he heard, at first stopped and looked downward at the ground; then he threw away his arms, and then trembling he wept bitterly. And when the old man came up to him, he embraced the Apostle, making confession of his sins with lamentations as he was able, thus baptizing himself a second time with tears, and concealing only his right hand. But John, pledging himself, and assuring him on oath that he had now found forgiveness with the Savior by his prayers of intercession, praying on his bended knees, kissed his right hand itself as being now purified of all iniquity by repentance, and led him back again to the Assembly.
“And making intercession for him with frequent prayers, and struggling together with him in continual periods of fasting, and subduing his mind by various consoling utterances, they say he did not depart, before he had restored him to the Assembly, furnishing a powerful example of true repentance and a great evidence of an example of regeneration, a trophy of a visible resurrection.”

Eusebius says that it is proper to summarize the writings of the New Testament of the Lord acknowledged as genuine at that time. He says, first the holy fourfold grouping of the Gospels, and following them the book of the Acts of the Apostles. And after these must be listed the Epistles of Paul, but Eusebius does not name them or give their number, and next in sequence the acknowledged First Epistle of John, and likewise the First Epistle of Peter must be admitted as acknowledged. After them the Apocalypse of John, the Revelation, may be added, as seems proper; which some reject, but which others class with the accepted books. These then are the books recognized as genuine which belong among the sacred writings. He says those that are disputed, and yet well-known and approved as authentic by most, are the reputed Epistles called James and Jude, as also the Second Epistle of Peter, and those called the Second and Third Epistles of John, whether they are the work of the Evangelist or of someone else with the same name.

Among the spurious writings must be accounted both of the books called the Acts of Paul, and the Pastor, that is, The Shepherd of Hermas, and the Apocalypse or Revelation of Peter; and besides these, those called the Epistle of Barnabas, and what are called The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles, the Didache; and it seems right to others to count as spurious the Apocalypse or Revelation of John, already mentioned as fully accepted by many. And others have also placed among the spurious works The Gospel According to the Hebrews, with which those Hebrews who have accepted Christ are especially pleased. All of these may be accounted as being among the disputed books. And this may be said to be all that concerns the books that are disputed.

He says it is necessary to also give a catalogue distinguishing those works which, according to ecclesiastical tradition, are true and genuine and well-authenticated writings, from those others not only not canonical but disputed, and yet at the same time recognized as genuine by most ecclesiastical writers; so that we may have the ability to know both these works, and those that, without any basis, are falsely claimed as genuine by the heretics, under the names of the Apostles: including, for instance, such books as the Gospels of Peter, of Thomas, another Gospel of Matthew, or of any others besides them, and those containing the Acts of Andrew and John and the other Apostles, which not one of those who belong to the succession of ecclesiastical writers has even condescended to mention in his writings. And further, the character of the style is very different from that of the apostolic usage, and both the thoughts and the purpose of the things set forth in them, in deviating so completely from sound orthodoxy, clearly show themselves with evident proof to be the fictions of heretics. For this reason they are not only to be placed even among the spurious writings, but all of them are to be utterly discarded as absurd and insolently opposed to genuine piety.

Thus far Eusebius, respecting those books which are accepted and those disputed, as differing from those which are heretical.

At this time at Antioch, where Evodius had been the first Episcopos, Ignatius was becoming well known as the second Episcopos of Antioch, known to us as Ignatius of Antioch, a personal disciple of John. Likewise at this time, Symeon was the second episcopal ruler after James the brother of our Savior to have charge of the Assembly in Jerusalem: first Peter the Apostle, after the Lord’s ascension to heaven, then James, made Episcopos of Jerusalem, and then Symeon, the second Episcopos of Jerusalem. When Symeon also had died a martyr as described, a certain Jewish convert by the name of Justus succeeded to the Episcopal throne in Jerusalem. There were great numbers of the circumcision at that time who believed and came over to the Christian faith in Christ, and Justus was one of them.

So great a persecution was at that time begun against our faith in most places that Pliny the Younger, Plinius Secundus, one of the most notably distinguished Roman governors, being disturbed and moved by the great number of martyrs, communicated with the emperor Trajan concerning the multitudes of those who were put to death for their faith. At the same time, he informed him in his communication that as far as he could ascertain he had not heard of their doing anything profanely wicked or contrary to the laws; except that they arose at dawn and sang hymns to Christ as to a God; but that adultery and murder and similar criminal excesses were renounced and totally abhorred by them, and in all things they acted in accordance with the laws.

To this, Trajan in reply issued the following decree: the intent of it was that no search should be made for any of the race of Christians, but when they openly present themselves they should be punished. With this the extreme violence of the persecution which had threatened to be a most terrible one seemed to be checked, but there were no fewer pretexts remaining for those who wished to harass us. Sometimes the people, sometimes the rulers in various places, would lay plots to ensnare us, so that without an obvious official state persecution, local persecutions took place in various provinces, and many of the faithful endured various forms of martyrdom.

The translation of an account from the Latin Apology of Tertullian reads as follows:

“And indeed”, he says, “we have found that an inquisitional search for us is prohibited. For Plinius Secundus, the governor of the province, having condemned certain Christians and deprived them of their dignity, was confounded by the multitude of them, and was in doubt as to what further course to pursue. He therefore communicated the fact to Trajan the emperor, informing him that, with the sole exception that they were not willing to offer sacrifice, he had found no criminal impiety in them. He also reported this, that the Christians arose early in the morning with the sun and sang hymns to Christ as to a God, and for the purpose of preserving their discipline they forbade adultery, murder, greed, fraud, robbery, and all crimes like them. To this Trajan wrote in reply, that the race of Christians should not be sought after, but when they presented themselves they should be punished.”

Such were the circumstances connected with these events at that time.

Saint Jerome, in his commentary on Galatians 6:10, relates a famous tradition about the Apostle John the Evangelist in extreme old age at Ephesus. He was customarily carried in the arms of his disciples into the congregation, and was unable to say anything except, “Little children, love one another.”

This he always did. Being wearied that he never varied from saying these same words, at last they asked: “Master, why do you always say these words?”

He replied, “It is the Lord’s command, and if this one only thing is done, it is enough.”

The Apostle Judas Iscariot, having committed apostasy and hanged himself, and Matthias, chosen in his place as a witness to the resurrection of the Lord from the beginning of his baptism by John, the holy Apostles and disciples of our Savior, being scattered over the whole world,
James, the brother of John, was killed by Herod Agrippa with the sword;
Andrew received Scythia, and after preaching the Gospel in many places was chosen to go to the city of Lydd and to Kurdistan and to the cities of Aksis, Areguas and Hereferes; and he also went with Bartholomew the Apostle to the city of Azrines; the pagan priests seized him and bound him and beat him severely and killed him by crucifixion, they hanged him upon a tree and stoned him unceasingly;
James, called the brother of Jesus the Christ, the son of Alphaeus, remaining in Jerusalem as Episcopos of the Assembly, the Pharisees, upset at James’s Teachings, first threw him from the summit of the Temple in Jerusalem, then stoned him and at last broke his skull with a fuller’s club;
the Apostle Peter appears to have preached through Syria, Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia Minor; and at last coming to Rome, and finally being imprisoned, he was crucified head-downward, for he had requested that he might suffer in this way;
Paul was beheaded at Rome;
Matthias is said to have preached the Gospel of salvation to barbarians and cannibals in the interior of Ethiopia (that is to say, Colchis), at the harbor of the sea at Hyssus at the mouth of the river Phasis; and that he was stoned to death at the instigation of the Jews, that he was crucified and died at Sebastopolis and then beheaded, and buried there near the temple of the sun;
Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist, who had been preaching, after fifteen years went and preached the Gospel of the Lord first in Parthia, and then in Ethiopia; and it is said by some that he suffered martyrdom in the latter country, was stabbed to death in Ethiopia in the city of Nadabah, being slain with a halberd, a combined spear with axe-head; and although others claim he was not martyred, the tradition of the church, the Christian Assembly, declares that he was a martyr for the Lord;
the Apostle Bartholomew also called Nathanael carried the Gospel through the most barbarous countries of the East, penetrating into the remoter Indies, baptizing neophytes and casting out demons, and carried the Gospel of Matthew to India; and the governor of Albanopolis condemned him to be crucified, and he was flayed alive as part of his crucifixion;
Thomas, according to tradition, had received Parthia as his allotted region, and went on to India, where Saint Thomas, while praying fervently at a rock at the foot of a very large cross he had erected, suffered his martyrdom by a blow from the lance of a pagan priest and died at Meliapour;
Philip the Apostle, the first Episcopos of Byzantium, in Asia Minor at Heliopolis in Phrygia converted the wife of a Roman proconsul, and in retaliation the proconsul had Philip arrested and he was cruelly martyred; he was scourged, thrown into prison, and afterward crucified, impaled by iron hooks in his ankles and hung upside down to die;
the two Apostles Saint Jude also commonly called Thaddeus and Saint Simon Zelotes went to evangelize Armenia and Persia, and almost all the lands of the then known world, even as far as Britain, have been mentioned; and they too were martyrs for the Christ, Jesus;
and the beloved Apostle John received Asia, where, after continuing for some time, he died at Ephesus.

The time of John’s death has also in some measure been mentioned in a general way, some say A.D. 99 or 104, being very old, but the place of his burial is indicated long afterward by an epistle of Polycrates, who was Episcopos of the parish of Ephesus, addressed to Victor, Episcopos of Rome from A.D. 189 to 199. In this epistle he mentions both him and the Apostle Philip and his daughters thus in the following words:

“For in Asia also great luminaries have fallen asleep, which shall rise again on the last day, at the appearing of the Lord, when he shall come with glory from heaven and shall seek out and gather again all the saints. Among these are Philip, one of the twelve Apostles, who sleeps in Hierapolis, and his two aged virgin daughters, and another daughter who lived in the Holy Spirit and now rests at Ephesus; and moreover John, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and being a Priest wore the sacerdotal plate, who was both a martyr and a Teacher. He also sleeps at Ephesus.”

The historian Hegesippus, while recounting the events of that period, also records that the Assembly of the Lord up to that time had continued to be a pure and uncorrupted virgin; while if there were any who attempted to corrupt the sound norm of the doctrine of the saving Gospel, they lay skulking, up to then concealed in dark hiding places. But when the sacred college of Apostles had become extinct from suffering death in various forms, and the generation of those who had been given the privilege of hearing with their own ears their inspired wisdom had passed away, then too a combined godless error arose from the fraud and delusions of heretical Teachers; who, because none of the Apostles was still living, began attempting with a bold face, to proclaim henceforth their false doctrine of gnosis, the “knowledge which is falsely so-called”, against the Gospel of truth. However, those whom the Apostles while living had ordained Shepherds of the Assembly, keeping watch over men’s souls, the dispensation being committed unto them, stood against them, as being men who guard the truth that has been entrusted to us by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us and will remain with us for ever, committed to faithful men who are able to Teach others also.

About this time Polycarp, an intimate and close disciple of the Apostles, flourished as a man of eminence in Asia, having been entrusted with the Episcopate of the Assembly at Smyrna, under the hands of those who had been eyewitnesses and servants of the Lord. Also at the same time Papias became well known, Episcopos of the Assembly at Hierapolis, a man deeply skilled in all manner of learning, and thoroughly acquainted with the Scriptures. And Ignatius too, whose fame is celebrated by a great many even now, who was chosen as the successor to Peter at Antioch, the second to obtain the Episcopal office there, himself a disciple of the Apostle John.

According to tradition, about this time, A.D. 105, St. Evaristus, Episcopos of Rome died, and Alexander, a Roman and former disciple of Plutarch, was elected Episcopus of Rome, the fifth successor of Peter, Linus the first, Cletus the second, Clement the third, Evaristus the fourth, and now Alexander the fifth. He was chief shepherd in the church at Rome until he died, A.D. 115.

Tradition says that in A.D. 110 during the reign of Trajan (who died in 117) Ignatius was taken and sent by the Roman authorities from Syria to Rome, and was thrown as food to wild beasts in the arena, on account of his testimony to Christ.

And as he was conveyed on the journey through Asia in 110 under a most rigid military custody, he strengthened and fortified the assemblies in the various cities where he briefly stayed by oral homilies and exhortations, and especially to caution them above all to be even more on their guard against the heresies that were even then sprouting and beginning to prevail. He exhorted them to hold fast to the tradition of the Apostles which they had been Taught, whether by word or by letter; and, moreover, for the sake of greater security to attest that tradition in writing, to give it a fixed form.

So when he came to Smyrna, where Polycarp was, he wrote an epistle, that one to the Christian Assembly at Ephesus, in which he mentions their pastor Onesimus; and another to the Christian Assembly of Magnesia, situated on the Mæander River, in which he makes mention again of Damas the Episcopos; and another also to the Christian Assembly of the Trallians at Tralles, whose Episcopos, he states, was Polybius at that time.

With these must be included also his epistle to the Christian Assembly of Rome, which contains an exhortation to them not to rob him of his earnest confident expectation by refusing to endure his martyrdom. In confirmation of what has been said it is proper to quote briefly from this epistle. It is worthwhile to also here include brief extracts as specimens.

He writes as follows:

“From Syria even to Rome I am battling with wild beasts, by land and by sea, by night and by day, being chained in the midst of ten leopards, a military band of soldiers who when they are well treated with kindness only respond with greater ferocity. Yet in the midst of these evils, I am learning more discipline, but I am not justified on this account. May I have the joyful benefit of the beasts prepared in readiness for me; which I pray may be found by me entirely ready, and I will even entice and coax them to devour me quickly that they may not be afraid of me, as they were of some they did not touch. And if perchance they are unwilling, I will provoke them. Forgive me. I know what benefit it will confer on me. I only now begin to be a disciple. Nothing of things visible and things invisible excites my ambition, when I can gain Jesus Christ. Whether it be fire, or the cross, attacks of wild beasts, the dislocating wrenching of bones, the breaking of limbs, crushing of my whole body, let it be the tortures of the devil; let all these all assault me, if only I gain Christ Jesus.”

These things he wrote from Smyrna to the Christian assemblies of Ephesus, Magnesia and Tralles. And when he had left Smyrna he wrote again from Troas an exhortation to those at Philadelphia and Smyrna; and one in particular to Polycarp, who presided over the Smyrnæan Assembly, whom he designates as an apostolical man, and commending to him, like a true and good Shepherd, the flock at Antioch, earnestly requesting him to exercise diligent supervision of the Assembly.

Writing to the Smyrnæans, he employs the following words concerning Christ, without specifying the source:

“But I know and believe that he was seen in the flesh after the resurrection. And that he said to those who joined Peter, 'Take, handle me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit'. And immediately they touched him and believed.”

Ignatius is a particularly important witness to the nature and structure of the early Church, the Christian Assembly. His “letter to the Smyrnaeans” declares that Christians all across the world are united in one universal Assem­bly which he calls “the Catholic Church”, the earliest instance of this phrase in surviving Christian literature.

His “letter to the Romans”, an impor­tant witness to Peter’s pres­ence and leadership in Rome, acknowledges in the salutation that the Roman Church ranks “first in love”. The con­trast between the salutation and tone of this letter and those of the letters written to the Asian Churches is significant. His special esteem and deference shown to the Church of Rome demonstrates that a basic consciousness of the primacy of the Church of Peter and Paul existed very early in the second century.

In his letter to the Trallians, it is taken for granted that each local Christian community is led by a single Bishop, a single Episcopos, assisted by a council of Pres­byters (Priests) and several Deacons. According to Ignatius, “you cannot have a church without these”.

Ignatius is also a witness to belief in transubstantiation in the early church, the Christian Assembly. The following are quotations from the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch.

“The Letter to the Smyrnaeans”:

“Consider how contrary to the mind of God are the heterodox in regard to the grace of God which has come to us. They have no regard for charity, none for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, none for the man in prison, the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead.

“The Letter to the Ephesians”:

“Come together in common, one and all without exception in charity, in one faith and in one Jesus Christ, who is of the race of David according to the flesh, the son of man, and the Son of God, so that with undivided mind you may obey the Episcopos and the Priests, and break one Bread which is the medicine of immortality and the antidote against death, enabling us to live forever in Jesus Christ.”

“The Letter to the Romans”:

“I have no taste for the food that perishes nor for the pleasures of this life. I want the Bread of God which is the Flesh of Christ, who was the seed of David; and for drink I desire His Blood which is love that cannot be destroyed.”

“The Letter to the Philadelphians”:

“Take care, then, who belong to God and to Jesus Christ—they are with the Bishop, the Episcopos. And those who repent and come to the unity of the Church—they too shall be of God, and will be living according to Jesus Christ. Do not err, my brethren: if anyone follow a schismatic, he will not inherit the Kingdom of God. If any man walk about with strange doctrine, he cannot lie down with the passion. Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: for there is one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of His Blood; one altar, as there is one Bishop, one Episcopos, with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons.”

From Ignatius comes supporting evidence of hierarchy in the early church:

“The Letter to the Smyrnaeans”:

“You must all follow the lead of the Bishop, the Episcopos, as Jesus Christ followed that of the Father; follow the presbytery as you would the Apostles; reverence the deacons as you would God’s commandment. Let no one do anything touching the Church, apart from the Episcopos. Let that celebration of the Eucharist be considered valid which is held under the Episcopos or anyone to whom he has committed it. Where the Episcopos appears, there let the people be, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not permitted without authorization from the Episcopos, the Bishop, either to baptize or to hold an agape; but whatever he approves is also pleasing to God. Thus everything you do will be proof against danger and valid.”

“The Letter to the Ephesians”:

“Wherefore it is fitting that you should run together in accordance with the will of your Episcopos, your Bishop, which thing also you do. For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the Bishop as the strings are to the harp. Therefore in your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung. And man by man, become a choir, that being harmonious in love, and taking up the song of God in unison, you may with one voice sing to the Father through Jesus Christ, so that He may both hear you, and perceive by your works that you are indeed the members of His Son. It is profitable, therefore, that you should live in an unblameable unity, that thus you may always enjoy communion with God.”

Polycarp also makes mention of these letters in the epistle to the Philippians which bears his name, in these words as follows:

“I exhort all of you, therefore, to be obedient and to practice all such patience as you see with your own eyes, not only in the blessed martyrs Ignatius, and Rufus, and Zosimus, but also similarly in others of your fellow citizens, as in Paul himself and the other Apostles; being persuaded that these all ran not in vain, but in faith and righteousness, and that they are gone to the place destined for them beside the Lord, with whom they suffered. For they loved not the world that is now, but him who died for our benefit and who was raised by God for us.”

The holy martyrs Rufus and Zosimus had been taken with Ignatius, and they were slain in the arena two days before him.

And afterward he writes:

“You have also written to me, both you and Ignatius, that if anyone is going to Syria he may carry with him your letters, which will be done when I discover a suitable opportunity, either by me or by the one I send as ambassador on this errand for you also. The epistles of Ignatius sent to us by him, which we had with us we sent to you as you required, are appended to this epistle, and from them you will be able to derive great benefit. For they encompass faith and patience, and every kind of edification that pertaineth to our Lord.”

Irenæus also knew of his martyrdom and makes mention of his epistles in the following words:

“As someone of our faith has said, who was condemned to the wild beasts on account of his testimony of God, I am the food of God, ground like wheat by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found to be pure bread.”

The seven epistles of Saint Ignatius of Antioch considered by scholars to be the authentic texts are these:

To the Ephesians (ad Ephesians)
To the Magnesians (ad Magnesians)
To the Trallians (ad Trallians)
To the Romans (ad Romans)
To the Philadelphians (ad Philadelphians)
To the Smyrnaeans (ad Smyrnaeans)
To Polycarp (ad Polycarp)

The authenticity of the seven letters is guaranteed by Polycarp and Eusebius, who give the content and order of the letters.

This much respecting Ignatius. And in the Episcopate of the Assembly of Antioch Ignatius was succeeded by Heros.

Among those who flourished at that time was Quadratus of Athens, said to be distinguished for his prophetical gifts along with many others besides who were notable in those days, those of foremost rank among the successors of the Apostles. These also, being holy disciples of such great men, built up those congregations whose foundations were previously laid by the Apostles in every place; who augmented the means of the preaching of the Gospel more and more, and widely sowed the seeds of salvation and the kingdom of heaven throughout the whole world, both near, and far and wide.

For in fact the majority of the disciples of that time, animated by the divine word with a more ardent love for the divine word, had already first fulfilled the Savior’s commanding precept, having distributed their substance to the needy. Then leaving their country and setting out on long journeys they performed the office of evangelists for those who had not yet heard the word of the faith, while with their noble ambition to proclaim Christ they also gave to them the books of the four holy Gospels.

After only laying as preparation the foundations of the faith in foreign places, as the specific objective of their mission, and appointing others as Pastoral Shepherds of the flocks, and having entrusted them with the nurture of those that had recently been introduced into the Assembly, they themselves went on again to other regions, countries and nations, with the grace and the co-operation of God.

The Holy Spirit also continued working many wonders by His power through them, so that as soon as the first hearing of the Gospel, whole multitudes of men voluntarily, and eagerly, embraced the true faith of the religion of the Creator of the universe with their whole minds.

But since it is impossible for us to give the numbers of the names of all the individuals who became shepherding pastors or evangelists during the age of the first immediate succession of the Apostles in the assemblies throughout the world, we have recorded only the names of those of whom we have received an account from tradition, as contained in various commentaries in writings still extant, on those who have fittingly transmitted the apostolic doctrine to us.

We may mention as an example all that Ignatius has said in the epistles we have cited, and Clement in his epistle which is universally accepted by all, and which he wrote in the name of the Assembly of Rome to the Assembly of Corinth. In this epistle, after giving many thoughts drawn from the Epistle to the Hebrews, and also verbally quoting literally some of its wording, he most plainly demonstrates that this work is by no means a recent, late production.

For this reason, it seems probable that it was also counted with the other writings of the Apostles. For as Paul had addressed the Hebrews in his native language of his country, some say that the evangelist Luke, and others that Clement himself, translated the Epistle to the Hebrews. Eusebius says that Clement seems more probably like the truth, reasoning that the epistle of Clement and that to the Hebrews keep to the same characteristic features in regard to style and phraseology, and still further because the thoughts contained in both these works are not very different.

But it must also be observed that there is a second epistle ascribed to Clement. But we do not know that this is as highly esteemed and approved as the first, for we do not find that it has been quoted or cited by the ancients.

And other wordy and lengthy writings under his name have lately been reported by certain men, and some time ago those containing dialogues of Peter and Apion. But no mention of one syllable of them has been recorded by the ancients of the primitive church; for they do not even preserve the pure stamped impression of apostolic orthodoxy. The acknowledged writing of Clement is clearly obvious. We have spoken sufficiently also of the works of Ignatius and Polycarp.

There are five extant books of Papias, which bear the title Expositions of Oracles of the Lord, or Interpretations of our Lord’s Declarations. Irenæus also makes mention of these as the only works written by Papias, in the following words:

“These things are attested by Papias, who was a hearer of John, and the associate and companion of Polycarp, an ancient writer who cites them in the fourth book of works written by him. For he has written a work in five volumes.”

These are the words of Irenæus about Papias.

But Papias himself in the preface to his discourses by no means declares that he was himself a hearer and an eyewitness of the holy Apostles, but he informs us by the words he uses that he received the doctrines of the faith from their intimate friends, which he states as follows:

“But I shall not have reason to regret including for you along with my interpretations whatsoever things I have at any time carefully ascertained and carefully remembered, as I received it from the Presbyters and carefully remembered, and recorded in order to additionally guarantee their truth by my testimony. For I never did, like the multitude, take delight in listening to those who tell many things and speak much, but in those that Teach the truth; nor in those who relate strange commandments, foreign precepts, but in those who give the commandments from the Lord to our faith, which spring from the truth itself. If, then, I met anyone who had been a follower of the Presbyters anywhere, I made it a point to ask him what were the words of the Presbyters; in regard to what Andrew or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of our Lord, and what things Aristion and the Presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I do not think I obtained as much benefit from the books as from the living and abiding word of those who were still alive.”

It is also appropriate to note that the name of John is twice mentioned by him. The first mention is in connection with Peter and James and Matthew, and the other Apostles, clearly meaning the Evangelist; but in a separate point of his discussion, after an interval, he mentions the other John, ranking him a place among others outside of the number of the Apostles, putting Aristion before him, and he plainly designates him with the name of Presbyter.

Here this proves that the statement of those is true, who assert there were two persons who bore the same name in Asia, and also that there were two tombs in Ephesus, and that both are called John’s, even to the present day; it is important to notice this. For if it is not admitted that the first saw the Revelation, it is probable that it was the second tomb which is ascribed by name to John.

And Papias also professes to have received the declarations of the Apostles from those who followed them in their company, but says that he himself was personally a hearer of Aristion and the Presbyter John. For as often as he mentions them by name, he also gives their traditions in his writings. This is no useless exercise.

It is also proper to add other passages from his works in which he relates some other wonderful events, together with other matters which he claims to have drawn from our recorded tradition.

Papias, a contemporary of Philip the Apostle who dwelt at Hierapolis with his daughters, says that he received a wonderful account from the daughters of Philip. For he relates that in his time one was raised from the dead. And he tells of another wonderful event that occurred, that of Justus, surnamed Barsabbas: that he drank a deadly poison, and experienced no injury, and suffered no harm, by the grace of the Lord. And this Justus is the one mentioned in the Book of Acts after the ascension of the Savior, where it records that the holy Apostles put forward him, together with Matthias, over whom they prayed, and cast lots, that one might be chosen to fill up their number in place of the traitor, Judas. The passage of scripture is as follows:

“And they put forward two, Joseph, called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias; and having prayed, they said—.”

The same historian Papias also gives other accounts which he says he adds as received through unwritten tradition, certain similar strange parables and Teachings of the Savior, and some other things, which are rather more mythical fables. Among these belong the statement that there will certainly be a millennium period of some thousand years after the resurrection of the dead, and that there would be a corporeal reign of the kingdom of Christ set up in material form on this very earth: an imaginative idea gotten through a misunderstanding of the apostolic accounts, as if authorized by them, not correctly perceiving that the things said by them were spoken mystically in their representative imagery. And this compiled account was the cause that so many of the ecclesiastical writers, urging in their own support the antiquity of the man, after him were carried away by a like opinion; as for instance Irenæus and any others who may have proclaimed similar views.

Papias inserts also in his own work other accounts as given by the authority of Aristion, already mentioned, with respect to our Lord, and also traditions as handed down from the Presbyter John; to which traditions we refer those who are eager to learn them; to which we must add, to the extracts from him we have already quoted, a tradition which he sets forth in regard to Mark, who wrote the Gospel.

“And John the Presbyter also said: Mark, becoming and being the interpreter of Peter, wrote down and recorded with great accuracy, but not, though, in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things spoken or done by our Lord. For he neither heard nor followed our Lord, but afterward, as already said, he followed in company with Peter; who gave him such instruction as necessary, but not in order to give a sequenced history of our Lord’s utterances; who adapted his Teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord’s discourses; and for this reason Mark has not erred in any detail, and committed no error while thus writing some things as he has remembered and recorded them. For he was carefully attentive to one thing, not to omit or pass by any thing which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely in these accounts.”

These things are related by Papias concerning Mark.

But of Matthew he states in writing as follows:

“So then Matthew composed his history giving the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one translated and interpreted them as he was able.”

And the same writer Papias made use of testimonies from the First Epistle of John and likewise from that of Peter. And he also relates another story of a woman, who had been accused of many sins before the Lord, which is also contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. And these things Eusebius believed necessary to observe in addition to what has been already stated.

As for the whole of the scriptures of the Jews and of the Apostles of the Lord as read by them and passed on to us from the time of the apostles, they are contained in the Holy Bible as it has been faithfully kept whole and entire by the power of the Holy Spirit and preserved by devout men and Shepherds of the church in the east and the west from the first century in both the Greek and Latin texts of the whole Bible, and translated into the tongues of the Gentile nations to this day.


We have thus set forth what has come to our knowledge with respect to the Apostles themselves and the apostolic age, and respecting the sacred books which they have left us, both those which are disputed, though publicly used by many in the great majority of the assemblies, and those that are altogether spurious and are far removed and out of harmony with the universally correct orthodox and catholic doctrine of the Apostles, the Teaching of the Lord. All of this is evidence against the claim that there was a great apostasy from the Gospel of the Lord immediately after the death of the Apostles, an apostasy so great that the knowledge of salvation and the truth of the faith had utterly perished from the earth. For if the truth had been removed, no scripture would have remained, and the tradition of the Apostles would be unknown to this day.

The word of the Lord abides forever by the power of the Spirit of the Lord, who remains with us forever and leads us into all truth through his body, the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. That word is the Gospel which has been preached to you. The Gospel does not end. No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel, can avail against the Lord. The word of God is not chained. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. His Gospel endures forever!

And now, by the mercy of God, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Peace be with you.

Amen!

Reading time about one hour forty-five minutes

The text of this chapter is a redaction of the informative sources listed and linked below, rearranged, chronologically sequenced, collated, condensed, combined and adapted, while seeking to preserve much of their expressive language, and in some instances updating and improving both their translations and the written copy. Parallel constructions and duplications in the text have been kept to a minimum as far as possible without loss of information.

Ecclesiastical History III, chapters 21–23

1 John
2 John
3 John

Ecclesiastical History III, chapter 1
Ecclesiastical History III, chapters 24–39

Compare
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Scofield Reference Bible (1917 Edition)
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multiple versions of any verse
multiple commentaries any passage
interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English
Bible maps (click initial letter of place name)
Bible Encyclopedias: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature (studylight.org)
Catholic Encyclopedia Catholic Online (catholic.org)
Hebrew Calendar Converter See exact equivalents of Gregorian Calendar dates.

—in Gregorian Calendar click the cursor in the day, month, or year fields, to highlight selection,
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Table of Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, in English translation, Joel Kalvesmaki 2013 (kalvesmaki.com)

List of 300 Septuagint Old Testament quotations in the New Testament, by Steve Rudd 2017 (bible.ca)

Table of LXX quotes and allusions in the New Testament


Church History (Eusebius): The Ecclesiastical History Of Eusebius Pamphilus: Bishop Of Caesarea, In Palestine (newadvent.org)

The Works of Flavius Josephus William Whiston, Translator, 1737 (sacred-texts.com)

Suetonius: Twelve Caesars: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by C. Suetonius Tranquilus; To which are added His Lives of the Grammarians, Rhetoricians, and Poets. The Translation of Alexander Thomson, M.D., Revised and corrected by T. Forester, Esq., A.M. (Gutenberg.org)

Tacitus: The Annals, Written 109 A.C.E. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
Tacitus: The Histories, Written 109 A.C.E. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (A.D. 69 through 70)

Sextus Aurelius Victor: Epitome De Caesaribus (roman-emperors.org)

Eutropius: Breviarium - Eutropius's Abridgement of Roman History (tertullian.org)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome (penelope.uchicago.edu)

Early Christian Writings A.D. 30 through 380 (earlychristianwritings.com)
See Biblical Canon and Apocrypha.

Note to the reader:
The text of this chapter is a redaction of the informative sources listed and linked below, rearranged, chronologically sequenced, collated, condensed, combined and adapted, while seeking to preserve much of their expressive language, and in some instances updating and improving both their translations and the written copy.


NERVA
Nerva: Roman Emperor (britannica.com)
Nerva (96-98 A.D.), David Wend (roman-emperors.org)
Nerva, Donald L. Wasson (ancient.eu)
Nerva - Livius (livius.org)
Nerva - Ancient Roman Emperors (ancientromanemperors.net)
Nerva (romanemperors.com)
Nerva - Marcus Cocceius Nerva (thoughtco.com)
Roman Emperor Nerva's Reform of the Jewish Tax: How Jews and Christians became further differentiated under Nerva, Nathan T. Elkins - Bible History Daily (biblicalarchaeology.org)
Nerva (studylight.org)
Capitolias - A titular see of Palestine, dates from the time of Nerva or Trajan - Catholic Encyclopedia online (catholic.org)
Nerva - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
Nerva & Trajan (pbs.org)
Trajan and the Christians (christianity.com)the article begins with the reign of Nerva.

TRAJAN
Trajan: Roman Emperor (britannica.com)
Trajan (A.D. 98-117), Herbert W. Benario, Emory University (roman-emperors.org)
Trajan, Donald L. Wasson (ancient.eu)
Trajan - Livius (livius.org)
Trajan - Ancient Roman Emperors (ancientromanemperors.net)
Trajan 98-117 A.D. (romanemperors.com)
Trajan Was the Roman Emperor Marcus Ulpius Traianus, by N. S. Gill (thoughtco.com)
Rare Roman Gold Coin Minted by Trajan Found (biblicalarchaeology.org)
Trajan (studylight.org)
Trajan Catholic Encyclopedia online (catholic.org)
Trajan - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXVII (penelope.uchicago.edu)
Cassius Dio: Roman History Epitome of Book LXVIII (penelope.uchicago.edu)

See Conservapedia articles
Nerva, Trajan


Chapter 21 Cerdon, the Third Bishop of Alexandria
Chapter 22 Ignatius, the Second Bishop of Antioch
Chapter 1 The Parts of the World Where Christ was Preached by the Apostles
Chapter 23 Narrative Respecting the Apostle John
Chapter 24 The Order of the Gospels
Chapter 25 The Sacred Scriptures Acknowledged as Genuine, and Those That Are Not
Chapter 26 Menander the Imposter
Chapter 27 The Heresy of the Ebionites
Chapter 28 Cerinthus the Heresiarch the deep secrets of Satan
Chapter 29 Nicolaus and His Followers the Nicolaitans
Chapter 30 The Apostles that Lived in Marriage
Chapter 31 The Death of John and Philip
Chapter 32 The Martyrdom of Simeon, Bishop of Jerusalem
Chapter 33 Trajan Forbids the Christians to be Sought After
Chapter 34 Evarestus, the Fourth Bishop of Rome
Chapter 35 Justus, the Third Bishop of Jerusalem
Chapter 36 The Epistles of Ignatius
Chapter 37 The Preaching Evangelists That Were Yet Living in That Age
Chapter 38 The Epistle of Clement, and Those That Are Falsely Ascribed to Him
Chapter 39 The Writings of Papias concerning the testimony of Papias on the authenticity of the Scriptures of the New Testament

"The thirteenth Roman emperor...was born at Narnia, in Umbria; according to Dio, in A.D. 32, making him 63 years old, A.D. 32 to 96; or, according to Eutropius, in A.D. 27, making him 68 years old, A.D. 27 to 96."

A.D. 32, according to Dio (68:4)
A.D. 27, according to Eutropius (8:1)

"We learn from Tacitus that he put an end to his own life."

Nerva's grandfather, Cocceius Nerva, a great favorite of the emperor Tiberius, consul in A.D. 22, and one of the most celebrated jurists of his age, committed suicide. See Tacitus Annals, 6:28.

"The removal of the wrongful accusation of the Fiscus Iudaicus."

The Fiscus Judaicus was first levied by Vespasian on Jews as a punishment after the Jewish Revolt and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Whereas Jews had regularly paid the annual half-shekel tax for the upkeep of the Temple in Jerusalem (Exodus 30:13), they were now obliged to pay the equivalent amount of two drachms (two denarii) for the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome (Josephus, Jewish Wars 7.218; Cassius Dio, Roman History 65.7.2).
Under Domitian (A.D. 81 to 96), the Fiscus Iudaicus was very harshly administered, and there was no shortage of informers (Suetonius, Domitian 12). In particular, new victims of the tax were non-Jews who “lived a Jewish life without publicly acknowledging that fact” (Jewish sympathizers and gentile Christians) and Jews who “concealed their origin and did not pay the tribute levied upon their people” (apostate Jews and Jewish Christians). Cassius Dio (67.14.1–2) records that Domitian had Flavius Clemens, the consul, and several others executed in A.D. 95 on the charge of atheism; this was a charge that condemned others who “drifted into Jewish ways.” Although some of the accused escaped execution, the property of all of the accused was confiscated by the state.

"One of Nerva’s specific reforms, also celebrated by the Fiscus Iudaicus coins, was to forbid people from accusing others of leading a Jewish life"

Cassius Dio 68.1.2.

"the likes of Aulus Didius Gallus Fabricius Veiento, one of Domitian's ill-reputed counselors"

See Aulus Didius Gallus Fabricius Veiento (everipedia.org)

"Clement the Episcopos of Rome had committed the Episcopal government of the Assembly of Rome to Evarestus, and departed this life after he had superintended the Teaching of the divine word nine years in all, which we understand to be A.D. mid-88 through into 97."

From Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Chapter 34.
See Pope Evaristus.
See also article Evaristus (rumblinginthewind.wordpress.com)

"Assembly of Alexandria...Assembly of Rome...Assembly of Jerusalem...Assembly of Antioch"

Four of the five ancient Patriarchates of the early Church. The Patriarchate of Ephesus is associated with the founding of the fifth Patriarchate, that of Constantinople. These all claim descent in the line of Apostolic succession from the original apostles of the Lord in the first century of the divine establishment of the Church as faithful guardians of the Gospel of the Lord under the inspirational guidance of the Holy Spirit handing on the purity of divine message of the apostolic tradition of the Faith of the Lord unchanged to the present day and to the end of time, with the mission of making disciples for the Lord
(Matthew 28:19-20; John 14:15-17; 16:12-14; Matthew 16:18-19; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-15; Galatians 1:6-9; Hebrews 13:17; Titus 3:9-10; 2 John 2:18-19 KJV).
See article Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Ephesus and All Asiana (ephesuspat.weebly.com)
See also Pentarchy, meaning literally "rule by five".

"Nerva ... he was struck by a fever and died at his villa in the Gardens of Sallust, on twenty-five January 98, according to Victor, or twenty-seven or twenty-eight January 98, according to Dio "

January 25, A.D. 98 (Victor, Caes. 12.2). "there was an eclipse"
January 27, A.D. 98 (Dio, 68, 4).

"PHILO"

"Philo accepted the Platonic concept of a distinction between imperfect matter, which is visible, and perfect Form, and therefore the conclusion that intermediary beings were necessary to bridge the enormous gap between God and the material world" —See Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume 1, Continuum, 2003, pp. 458–62.
"the Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated". —See Philo, De Profugis, cited in Gerald Friedlander, Hellenism and Christianity, P. Vallentine, 1912, pp. 114–15.
See Aristotle, Plotinus and Neoplatonism;
also Kabbalah and Great Apostasy.

"John also answered those who revered John the Baptist as a prophet, but had not accepted Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, by emphasizing the testimony that John the Baptizer himself had given about Jesus"

Many of the followers of John the Baptist, who revered him as a true prophet of God, rejected Jesus as the Messiah. Their descendants have continued to this day as members of the sect of the Mandaeans. The Mandaeans view Jesus as a false messiah but revere John the Baptist, who, according to their doctrine, performed miracles of healing through baptism, which the Mandaeans of the first century viewed as a magical process giving immortality, purification, and physical health. John 10:41 presents the opposing eyewitness testimony of many observers that "John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this man were true!"
Among the more important extant Mandaean writings are:
—the Ginza (Book of Adam), a cosmological treatise;
—the Book of John, describing the activities of John the Baptist;
—the Book of the Zodiac, a collection of magical and astrological texts;
—and the Baptism of Hibil Ziwa, describing the purification of the heavenly savior of the Mandaeans.
See the following articles:

"John ... he began with the doctrine of his divinity, and included his promise of the giving of his flesh and blood as food and drink for eternal life to those who believe him, doctrines which had seemingly been reserved for him, as their superior, by the divine Spirit of God, doctrines which many had begun to deny.

See John 6:51-53 "I am the living bread which came down from heaven ... unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you." At the time John wrote his Gospel this warning was especially directed to those within the Christian community who were considering leaving it (see 1 John 2:18-19), and to those who had begun to deny the doctrine of the Real presence, both of whom would consequently deprive themselves of the promised blessing of eternal life through rejection of the truth by either heresy or apostasy (See Hebrews 10:29; 6:4-8).
Ignatius of Antioch a disciple of the Apostle John himself, directly addressed this issue of the real flesh and blood of Christ in most of his famous letters. See notes below.
In the other three Synoptics the eucharist had already been described in detail. As it was unnecessary for John to give the genealogies found already in Matthew and Luke, he, having read the three authentic Gospels presented to him, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, likewise did not include the description of the Lord's Supper which they had faithfully narrated, as Paul had also done in his First Letter to the Corinthians, but he now, at the climax of the Apostolic Age near the end of the first century, included what they had not related, as if it had been reserved to him, as their superior, the doctrine Jesus spoke in the synagogue at Capernaum to the Jews and to his disciples pertaining to the giving of his flesh and blood as real food and drink for eternal life. There he asserts without any qualification that to those who receive him he will give his flesh and his blood, and if they do not receive him, they have no life. "Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me." In this context, those who accept him also eat his flesh and drink his blood and partake of his divinity (2 Peter 1:3-4). This is presented by Jesus in John's Gospel as one and the same thing ("you can't have one without the other"). John only now relates in writing what Jesus said about this mystery, and which had been kept holy by "word of mouth" (2 Thessalonians 2:15) and not committed to writing (2 John 12; 3 John 13-14) lest they "give what is holy to the dogs and cast their pearls before swine", because now the necessity of putting in writing the truth of the deeper teachings of Christ is so evident in the face of the growing challenge of false doctrines and false prophets and gnostics arising and teaching heresies and apostasy from the truth, that John includes it and other doctrines in his written account of the Gospel, so that it will not be lost. Compare 1 Timothy 4:1-3; 2 Peter 1:3-4; 2:1, 10-19; 1 John 4:1-6.
Ignatius of Antioch for the same reason and because of the crisis of truth in his time urges his disciples to put into writing the tradition of the apostles to give it a "fixed form". Thus there will be a continuing "sure norm of truth" for discerning genuine apostolic tradition from the falsehood of error, always according to the mind of the church rather than according to the deviations and novel interpretations of individuals seeking change by departing from the truth, even drawing disciples after them. 2 Peter 3:17-18 and Acts 20:30.
See especially Christianity: Early Church Community and Commitment: the Post-Biblical Period.


Epistles of John

1-2-3 John: Church in Crisis: An Exegetical Commentary on the Letters of John (bible.org)

Multiple commentaries on 1 John

Multiple commentaries on 2 John

Multiple commentaries on 3 John

The IVP New Testament Commentary Series: 1 John
The IVP New Testament Commentary Series: 2 John
The IVP New Testament Commentary Series: 3 John

Epistles of Saint John (catholicity.com)

The Epistles of St. John, Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty, St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Church, Chicago, Illinois (orthodoxebooks.org) pdf

Apostolic Fathers and Epistles of Ignatius.

Great Apostasy


"he is the expiating sacrifice"

1 John 2:2.
KJV "he is the propitiation". See commentaries.
The meaning of "expiate" or "propitiate" varies according to the differing doctrinal theologies of various denominations.
See the following:
See also:

"they went out from us"

1 John 2:19
This applies to every apostate, heretic, and schismatic.
See multiple commentaries on 1 John 2:19.

"You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge."

1 John 2:20
See interlinear text of 1 John 2:20.
The apostle is reassuring them, saying that their knowledge of Jesus Christ is the true gnosis of God, and that because they know Jesus, or rather, are known by him, they need no one to teach them a secret gnosis reserved for chosen elect initiates to bring them into a deeper, saving knowledge of the divine mystery (see Galatians 4:8-9; 1 Corinthians 4:1; Ephesians 3:9-10; Colossians 1:24-28; 2 Peter 1:16-21). See Christian mysteries.

"Now, my little children, remain in him"

1 John 2:28
This urgent commandment is found in many places in the New Testament, urging us not to fall away, not to leave, not to depart, but warning us to be careful to remain in Jesus Christ the Lord and obedient to the teaching we have received from him through the apostles, lest we lose even what we have. 2 Peter 3:17; Hebrews 6:4-6; John 15:1-6; Revelation 2:4-5; Matthew 7:21; 25:31-45; Ezekiel 18:21-24; Luke 8:18. This repeated urging and warning to believers would not be necessary if, according to the doctrine of unconditional eternal security and full assurance, the grace of the free gift of salvation cannot be lost, or forfeited, or revoked, because of any sin, whether intended or not. This demonstrates that the doctrines of Antinomianism and the doctrines of Calvinism are based on scriptures taken out of context. The repeated urging and warning to believers to be careful to remain in Jesus Christ, demonstrates that the proof text verses of 1 John 3:9 and 5:18,
"Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God", "whosoever is born of God sinneth not",
and the proof text verses of Romans 3:10 and 9:22, Ephesians 2:3 and 2 Peter 2:14,
"there is none righteous, no not one", "the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction", "by nature the children of wrath", "that cannot cease from sin"
—the repeated urging and warning to believers to be careful to remain in Jesus Christ the Lord—demonstrates that these passages among many others, have been taken out of context by those who "twist the scriptures to their own destruction" (see 2 Peter 3:15-18). The repeated presence of this warning in the Bible to remain in Jesus Christ is in contradiction to the scripture-twisting antinomian doctrine of absolute freedom from condemnation in Christ, a doctrine which falsely condemns as a Satanic deception any dogmatic requirement or need for both corporal and spiritual works of mercy and a consistently maintained life of Christlike personal moral virtue together with periodic confession of our sins to nurture and retain the free gift of salvation from God and the promise of heaven. See Licentiousness.

"every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God"

1 John 4:2
This "proof text" includes the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church as being of God, as demonstrated in their constant profession of the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and their dogmas regarding Jesus Christ as the Incarnate Son of God which they claim as revealed by the power and authority of the Holy Spirit within them as Teacher and Guide.
Compare Matthew 12:30-37; Mark 3:28-30; John 14:16-17 and John 16:13-14; 1 Timothy 4:1-2.
If "scripture cannot be broken" (see John 10:34-36) how can any Bible-believing Christian on the basis of this text in the Bible say the spirit within the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church is not of God? The method of using "proof text" against these churches is in this case a self-defeating contradiction for those evangelical fundamentalist Protestants who stand on the principle of sola scriptura in opposing the doctrines of Orthodoxy and Catholicism as being "according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience", "giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils" (Ephesians 2:2; 1 Timothy 4:1). This is the fundamental weakness of the principle of sola scriptura literally interpreted according to an exegesis based on the plain and simple obvious meaning of the words of the text.
Orthodox and Catholic doctrine does not depend solely on "proof texts" drawn from the Bible alone to demonstrate divine support for their claims to teach true doctrine against false doctrines of heretics, but according to their doctrinal teaching their claims are firmly based on scripture and tradition interpreted by what they regard as an authentic Magisterium guaranteed by Apostolic succession.
Controversialists are well aware that other denominations also teach that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, including the Jehovah's Witnesses and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons), as well as some esoteric gnostic groups of the New age movement and promoters of Cosmic Humanism. The fact that they indeed do teach this, even while some of them deny that Jesus Christ is God the Son according to an Arian doctrine that he is a lesser, created divine being adopted as God's Son that became incarnate, does not of itself validate their claim to be of God.
The context of scripture here is not the context of the whole of the Bible alone, but the additional context of the history of doctrinal controversies in the late A.D. first and early second centuries of the Christian Era (CE), such as Docetism and other forms of Gnostic doctrines which deny that divinity can become manifest as matter but can by infusion instead inhabit matter without joining matter to itself and be manifest without being mixed with matter, by being in matter, like air in lungs; or, conversely, instead of involving or using matter in any way at all, by visibly manifesting and presenting itself as a man, like the angels that appeared as men in the Old Testament who can appear to be solid material forms without having a material nature and can seem to all appearances to be corporeal beings but without being corrupted by matter or becoming matter.
Nestorianism at its root is also in fact a denial that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us", teaching as it does that the man Jesus became entirely "associated" with the Person of the Word of God by the decree of God the Father through power of the Holy Spirit completely overshadowing him, either from the moment of his conception in the womb of his mother, or at the baptism by John in the Jordan, but that in his own human nature Jesus in his own person was not also in his own divine nature the Second Person of God, that in himself and of himself he had and has no divine nature. See Council of Nicaea and Council of Chalcedon.
Many more liberal scripture scholars hesitate to declare, without reservation, that the First Epistle of John was in fact written specifically as a tract against Docetism and Gnosticism. They assert that these doctrines were not yet formulated until evident signs of their beginning later in the early-mid-to-late-middle second century, at the earliest, around A.D. 20 to 60. However, this reticence to associate First John with challenges presented by adherents of Docetism and Gnosticism dismisses the probable likelihood that these heretical groups maintained a strictly oral tradition in the beginning at the time that John heard of their teachings among his followers and wrote this first epistle to them, "my children", and proposes instead that only later did Docetics and Gnostics begin to actually write about their doctrines. Much of the epistle deals more directly with the licentious doctrine of Antinomianism, which is admittedly a major element in Gnosticism, and is much later found explicitly developed in the libertarian doctrines of Manichaeanism and Catharism. Evidence of gnostic doctrines associated directly with Simon Magus already in the mid-to-late first century is known to historians from contemporary writers of the time. See Mystery religion and Mysticism.

"No one has seen God at any time."

1 John 4:12 (compare John 1:18)
This is in reference to those who falsely claimed to have had a direct personal mystical or visionary experience of God and to have received new revelations from him as his anointed messenger in contradiction to the doctrine preached by the apostles, such as Cerinthus and others as already mentioned in the previous chapter of this Harmony of the Gospel (Conservative Version) Chapter Sixty-two (see above), and in this Chapter Sixty-three. Compare Colossians 2:18-19.
1 John chapter 4 verse 1 through chapter 5 verse 12 is John's guide to discerning the false teachers who claimed the spirit of prophecy from God and are nevertheless antichrist. They do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh (4:3); they are popular with the world and the world listens to them (4:5); they do not listen to the apostle John (4:6); they claim to have seen God (4:12); they do not confess that Jesus is the Son of God, yet they claim to abide in God and God in them (4:15); they say they love God and they still can hate their brother (4:20); they do not love God, because they do not keep the commandments of God (5:3); they do not believe in the Son of God because they do not believe in the testimony that God has borne about his Son (5:10); if therefore they do not have the Son, they do not have life (5:12)—they are false prophets who should not be believed (4:1).
Scripture testifies that some have seen God. Abraham saw God (Genesis 15:7-11, 17). Moses, Aaron, Nabab and Abihu, and the seventy elders saw God (Exodus 24:9-11). Job saw God (Job 38:1; 42:4-6). Solomon saw God twice (1 Kings 11:9). Isaiah saw God (Isaiah 6:1-5; John 12:37-41). Ezekiel saw God (Ezekiel 1). Daniel saw God (Daniel 7:9-14). The twelve apostles saw the Father (John 14:8-11, 23); Thomas saw God (John 20:26-29). John saw God on his throne (Revelation 4–5). See Theophany.
See commentaries on 1 John 4:12 and commentaries on John 1:18.

"This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three who testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood"

1 John 5:6-8
The Three Witnesses. See commentaries on 1 John 5:8.
In 1 John 5:6-8 Catholic and Orthodox understanding includes also the Sacraments of Confirmation (Spirit), Baptism (Water), and Eucharist (Blood), together as one with the reality of the Incarnation of the Word made flesh, in the Baptism of Christ by John in the Jordan River and the Crucifixion, death, burial and bodily Resurrection and Ascension of Christ.

"but he who was born of God keeps himself"

1 John 5:18
Variously translated from the Greek, as either teaching that the one born of God (the Christian) exercises the gift of free will as admonished to do so to keep himself, herself, away from the practice of sin and actively choosing to remain faithful, or as teaching that He (Christ) Who was born of God keeps from sin anyone born of God (the Irresistably chosen and Elect Christian) who is passively moved by God's power to be righteous, not of himself.
See multiple versions of 1 John 5:18.
Compare multiple commentaries on 1 John 5:18.
"but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself" αυτον "self".
"but the Begotten of God keepeth him" αυτον "him".
The question of interpretation, the question of reading: neither can be determined with certainty.
The context of the whole of the letter (together with the rest of the New Testament as a whole) supports the first interpretive translation, "but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself", that the Christian (saved by Christ alone) has personal responsibility to keep himself, herself, from the practice of sin by exercising willing obedience to the commandments of God in Christ Jesus (see 2:1-6, 24, 28; 3:3-4, 11-12, 17-18, 23; 4:7, 11, 15-16, 21; 5:2, 10, 18).
2 Peter 3:17-18 warns Christians against being carried away by the error of others and losing their stability in Christ by not "keeping themselves".

"Watch yourselves, that we do not lose the things which we have accomplished, but that we receive a full reward."

2 John 8
If this doctrinal verse is interpreted as contradicting eternal security in teaching that the reward can be lost, then this interpretation refers "the reward" to salvation, which cannot be earned, and therefore salvation cannot be the reward, since according to Christian doctrine salvation is only the unmerited gift of redemption in Christ Jesus alone through his passion, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven, there to make intercession for us.
Calvinism teaches that for the chosen elect whom God has saved by the glory of his Irresistible Grace there are additional rewards for works of goodness done in his name and for his glory alone, and that the rewards of the elect in heaven will vary according to what one has done or not done, and that it is possible to gain great rewards in heaven, and possible to also lose all earned rewards by a careless or complete failure to live a holy life with good deeds, which forfeits rewards and honor, so that "we lose the things which we have accomplished", but that the rewards gained or lost do not in any way determine retention or loss of salvation itself. See 1 Corinthians 3:11-15.
Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and also all those Protestant churches that have adopted Arminianism in varying degrees, see this warning, and all others like it in the New Testament, as directly pertaining to the responsibility of each and every true believer to continue to secure their own unmerited salvation by patiently persistent faithfulness to the Lord in living his commandments to love one another, and they see the reward here in this verse as according to the subsequent work done for the Lord by those who have been redeemed, as being in accordance with their faithfulness to the commandments of the Lord as those who have been purchased at a price they could never pay and called to live lives of holiness in charity before him, and those who despise the commandments of Christ to love one another in not fulfilling the good works which God has already prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them, will in fact actually lose the salvation they already had as an unmerited gift they could never earn, because they failed to fulfill the commandment to love God and their neighbor as themselves, despised the commandment, and thus "whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance, but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath".
See Ephesians 2:8-10; Matthew 13:12 and 24:45-51.
Also, because John says "watch yourselves" he is counselling them to be careful of their salvation so that "we do not lose our reward". This can be read two ways:
either —(a) they, that is, "yourselves", are to be careful, as those who have been ministered to and are being ministered to, so that those who minister to you, that is, "We", referring to himself, do not lose our own reward in ministering to you if you fall, involving us in the consequences of your own ruin of yourselves, because we shepherds must give an accounting for your souls as being responsible for your loss, which is our own loss as well (see Ezekiel 3:17-21 and Hebrews 13:17);
or —(b) a general counsel to "yourselves", as being also applicable to himself inclusively, as believers together, a universal principle including the writer that if "we" believers are not careful we (including himself) will lose all that "we" have accomplished as believers in our service to the Lord, both as individuals and collectively together as the community of the body of Christ, and for this reason, as fellow believers, they should "watch yourselves", we should all watch ourselves, that as believers and servants of the Lord we do not lose what we have accomplished (compare Ezekiel 18:24 and 1 Corinthians 10:12).

"speak face to face"

2 John 12b and 3 John 14b
Variously interpreted as (a) supporting the existence of an organic body of oral tradition unwritten in the Bible and passed down to the church through the centuries, and (b) as having nothing to do with unwritten tradition but rather the apostle's warm affection for the children of "the elect lady" who are faithful, and for Gaius, who helped support many of the brothers in their work for the Lord—in each case expressing his desire to simply come for a friendly visit and enjoy some pleasant conversation with them.
Various exegetes have seen in the whole tenor of both letters a desire to discuss important matters too significant to entrust to a letter, which would have less impact than would John's own personal presence as an apostle of the Lord in making an official visitation. The fact that John had "many things to write" has been seen as indicating both important matters to be addressed and as indicating some sense of urgency.
Others however have seen the two letters of Second and Third John as insignificant and the matter in them as too trivial and brief to merit the dignity of being regarded as scripture, as contributing nothing to the deposit of Christian doctrine already present in other books of the New Testament, and merely as casually informal literary artifacts of one reputed to be an apostle of Jesus Christ himself and as having no importance beyond that fact, or beyond that (uncertain) tradition. A similar opinion attaches to Paul's letter to Philemon as being too trivial and brief for serious study by scholars and as offering no significant contribution to the understanding of Christian doctrine.
See multiple commentaries on 2 John 12 and 3 John 14.


"St. Jerome, in his commentary on Galatians 6:10, relates a famous tradition about the Apostle John the Evangelist in extreme old age at Ephesus."

Related in several sources in varying reliable translations. See John R. W. Stott, The Epistles of John (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries; Eerdmans, 1964), p. 49, citing St. Jerome's commentary on Galatians 6, longer version, chapter VI.

when the Episcopos had accepted the charge and had promised all... The Presbyter then taking to his home the youth committed to him"

"Episcopos" and "Presbyter" refers to the same man, one that had been appointed and ordained by John as shepherd of the Christian assembly in that community. This brief passage from the tradition of St. John and the youth who was lost and regained is an illustrative example of the interchangeable terminology indifferently referring to the shepherds of the early church as both bishops and presbyters. The term "pope", which originally simply meant "papa" or "father", was also regularly used in the early church as a term of affection for bishops and presbyters as chief pastors of congregations and not at first as a title of their office as shepherds, as attested by early Christian writers. There is no evidence that the faithful flocks of the congregations ever called them "my papa" or "my father", but simply addressed them with respect as pope, papa, father so-and-so.

"the holy Apostles and disciples of our Savior, being scattered over the whole world"

A summary reiteration of the tradition of the deaths of the Twelve Apostles, derived from Eusebius and other sources.

"and moreover John, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and being a Priest wore the sacerdotal plate, who was both a martyr and a Teacher."

Greek πέταλον petalon. From a letter of Polycrates to Victor in Rome cited by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, chapter 31.
"Τό πέταλον, is the word in Polycrates here quoted by Eusebius. The Sept. so translate the Hebrew word in Exod. xxviii. 36, which properly signifies "a flower," but by our English translators is rendered "a plate," and afterwards, Exod. xxxix. 30, is called "a plate of the holy crown." It was a long plate of gold, two fingers broad, and reached from one ear of the priest to the other, says Maimon [Maimonides], in his Treatise of the Implements of the Santuary, chap. ix. sect. 1. See Ainswroth on the Pentat."
footnote, The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, Bishop of Cǽsarea, in Palestine. Translated from the Greek, by The Rev. C. F. Crusé, A.M. Assistant Professor in the University of Pennsylvania. With notes selected from the Edition of Valesius. London: George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden, 1874. London: printed by William Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street and Charing Cross (in the public domain). page 105.
Compare Revelation 14:1 "having his Father's name written in their foreheads".
According to early Christian writers and historians like Origen, Epiphanius Bishop of Salami (Cyprus) and Eusebius of Caesarea in the Holy Land both St. John and St. James wore a petalon on their miters where they served as bishops of Ephesus in Asia Minor (Turkey) and Jerusalem respectively. While some scholars believe this is evidence that the Mosaic Petalon of the Jewish high priest was preserved into the early Christian centuries (Whiston, The Works of Josephus, page 90 note b), it is likely that both St. John and St. James, by understanding that the old Levitical priesthood of Aaron was abolished and the authority as God's priestly representatives rested with the New Covenant successors (a doctrine called "supersessionism"), adopted their own petalon head-plates as signs of their priestly authority under Jesus Christ the Son of God and High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Such an emblem would have been especially meaningful for Jews who converted to Christianity (see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Book III, chapter 31; also see Epiphanius, Haer. 77.14).
See Exodus 28:2, 40 "for glory and for beauty"
Also 1 Chronicles 16:29; 2 Chronicles 20:21; Psalm 110:3 "worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness"
While the New Testament presents no commandment or standard regarding "garments" for worship, the tradition of expressing solemn respect and dignity toward God in manner of dress for worship and for those representatives of the Lord who shepherded the communities of the faithful and presided over Christian doctrine and eucharist as guardians of what had been entrusted to them (Acts 20:28; 2 Timothy 2:2; 1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:15) was maintained from the beginning. Ordinary dress was used, but more dignified, as for a special occasion of humble religious observance as being present in assembly before the Lord and Savior of the world and his minister to present themselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God (Romans 12:1-2).
As judges of the community (Luke 22:30; John 20:19-23; Matthew 18:15-18; 2 Corinthians 5:20; Hebrews 13:17) they adopted the style of the vestments of Roman magistrates, and when the custom of ordinary dress changed, the style of customary dress in Christian worship did not change. The miter of the bishop was retained, with and without a sacerdotal plate, as signifying the dignity of the high priestly minister and ambassador of Christ (see Romans 15:16).

"doctrine of gnosis, the "knowledge which is falsely so-called", against the Gospel of truth"

See 1 Timothy 6:20 and commentaries.
See the following articles:

"the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead." ... Bread of God which is the Flesh of Christ, ... one Eucharist ... one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of His Blood; one altar..."

This is the doctrine of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the form of bread and wine offered to God the Father on the altar by himself as high priest in union with his serving ministers and his people as the one living eternal sacrifice of salvation and redemption, the doctrine later called Transubstantiation.
This doctrine, as expressed in the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch as early as A.D. 110, is condemned by the majority of Evangelical Christians and especially all Fundamentalists as evidence of syncretism with pagan idolatry by heretical teachers in the early Church, and as evidence of the Great Apostasy from the truth of the Gospel shortly after the death of the last of the Apostles of the Lord. They cite the terminology of the Eucharist as "sacrifice", interpreted as the act of repeatedly slaying, killing, a sacrificial victim on an altar of sacrifice, and cite Hebrews 6:6 "seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame", as evidence of a blasphemous intention to kill Jesus over and over again as a sacrifice to God. By no means do they believe that Jesus can be killed repeatedly and offered afresh every day as a sacrifice to God, but they abhor the very idea that anyone should believe that this can be done, to desire even if only symbolically to commit this act repeatedly. They are horrified that the doctrine of the Eucharist declares dogmatically that this act is no symbol, but an unbloody form of the reality itself. They point to the doctrine in Hebrews chapter 10, which says that "this man [Jesus], after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God"..."for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified". They see Hebrews 10:11 and 10:18 as applicable to the sacrifice of the Eucharist:
"And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins … Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin."
In the intentional repetition of sacrifice for sins in the Mass and the Divine Liturgy, they see not only an intended killing by repeated ritual crucifixion of Jesus Christ, but also a heretical and blasphemous denial of the sufficiency of the one sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross in shedding his blood for the eternal redemption of all those he came to save.
Orthodox and Catholic apologists explain that the Eucharist is not a re-sacrificing or re-crucifying of Jesus by symbolic intention, but rather a re-presentation by Jesus Himself of his one unique and unrepeatable eternal sacrifice in eternity now made present in time and space every day and in every generation without interruption as the one perfect offering to God the Father in eternity where there is no limitation of created spacetime in which he presents himself as the one mediator eternally interceding for sinners in his one, uninterrupted ongoing ministry of reparation for the sins of the world as a pure offering to God, and in fulfillment of his promise to give us his flesh to eat as real food and his blood to drink as real drink, that we may partake of the divine nature by receiving him in communion as our personal Lord and Savior. The statements of Ignatius of Antioch condemning rejection of this doctrine of the one sacrifice of the Mass and Divine Liturgy as heresy (heterodox belief), and offered as documented evidence in support of the claims of Orthodoxy and Catholicism that this is a truly Apostolic doctrine, are denounced by Fundamentalists as a false doctrine inspired by demons from the pits of hell, citing 1 Timothy 4:1-3—they see absolutely no evidence of this doctrine anywhere in the New Testament. This is the basis for many statements in speech and writing since the time of the Reformation which firmly maintain that Orthodoxy and Catholicism is pagan, and an affront to God and an insult to Christ.
Neutral observers classify such statements and publications as polemical rhetoric, and as slander and libel against a religion.
Protestant apologists, avoiding labels, prefer instead to appeal to scripture (sola scriptura), and to reason and to what they regard and present as historical evidence of changes in doctrine by the Orthodox and Catholic churches.
See Berengar of Tours and Real presence
See especially article on the history of the doctrine of The Real Presence
Orthodox and Catholic condemnation of rejection of this Eucharistic doctrine, and the excommunication of those who rejected and defied the teaching authority of the Church, is condemned by non-Catholics as persecution of true Christians. Catholic and Orthodox teaching maintains that the apostolic doctrine is preserved by identifying and rejecting error.
See Defamation, Misrepresentation, Polemic, Fallacy of analogy, Specious reasoning and ''The Two Babylons''.


THE CONCLUSION to this HARMONY OF THE GOSPEL
"We have thus set forth what has come to our knowledge..."

Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Chapter 31.6 (adapted).
This text from Eusebius is adapted here as applicable to the whole of this encyclopedic Harmony of the Gospel (Conservative Version), as being an educational course of introduction-in-depth to the Christian New Testament and the Christian Gospel of Jesus Christ.

THE CLOSING SALUTATION TO THE READER:
"The word of the Lord abides forever...."
The closing words here are drawn from the following Bible texts:

1 Peter 1:25
Matthew 28:20
John 14:16
John 16:13
Proverbs 21:30
2 Timothy 2:9b
Psalm 19:4
Psalm 100:5
2 Corinthians 13:14
Romans 15:33

.

Amen. Michael Paul Heart

[The events of A.D. 93 through 97 are not included in the Conservative Bible New Testament.]


LINK TO CONSERVAPEDIA GOSPEL OF JOHN
John 1-7 (Translated)
John 8-14 (Translated)
John 15-21 (Translated)


This is the way it was from the beginning: what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, and what we have observed and handled with regard to the word which gives life. That life was made crystal clear, and we have seen it; now we affirm our creed and proclaim to you that life eternal which was with the Father and has been revealed to us. What we have seen and heard, we in turn proclaim to you, so that you can share in community with us. And our communion is with the Father and with His son, Jesus Christ. We are writing this letter to you with the intent of perfecting your joy.

Concerning the word of life, we have heard this message which we now proclaim to you: "God is light and darkness has no place in Him whatsoever!"

If we say that we are in communion with Him, but live in the dark, we are liars, and do not practice the truth. But if we live in the light, just as He is in the light, then we are all part of the same community, and the blood of His Son Jesus Christ makes us clean from all sin.

If we say that we are without sin, we are trying to trick ourselves, and there is no truth in us. But if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just. He forgives our sins, and makes us clean from all of our unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar, and his Word is not in us.

My students, I write this to you: Don't sin. But if a man every sins, he has an advocate with the Father - Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the sacrifice for our sins; and not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world. And we know that we have Him, if we keep his commandments.

He who says, "I know Him, but I don't keep his commandments," is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But he who keeps His word, in him is truly the love of God perfected: this is how we know that we are in Him. He that says he lives in Him, ought to walk as He walked.

My brothers, I am not really writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have always had. The old commandment is the word you have heard from the beginning. So if I'm writing a "new" commandment, it's something that's true in Him and in you. The darkness is over and the light of truth is shining.

He who says he is in the light, but hates his brother, is actually in darkness. He who loves his brother lives in the light, and there is no faltering for him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and doesn't know where he's going, because that darkness has blinded his eyes.

I write to you, students, because you sins are forgiven, in His name. I write to you, teachers, because you have known Him from the beginning. I write to you, brothers, because you have overcome the devil. I write to you, students, because you have known the Father. I have written to you, teachers, because you have known Him from the beginning. I have written to you, brothers, because you and strong and the word of God flourishes in you, and you have overcome the devil.

Do not love the world, or the things in this world. If any man loves the world, he cannot love the Father. For everything in the world: the lust of flesh, the lust of sight, the pride of life, is not with the Father, but is with the world. The world will pass away, and the lust with it; but whoever does the will of God continues forever.

Students, our time is nearly up. Just as we have heard that the antichrist shall come, already there are many antichrists, so our end is near. They abandoned us, but there were never really with us, for it they had been then they would sure have stuck with us. Instead they went their own way, demonstrating their lack of devotion with us. But you are anointed by the Holy One, and know all things.

I have not written to you because you are unaware of the truth, but because you do know, and that no lie is of the truth.

Who is a liar if not he who denies that Jesis is the Christ. He who denies the Father and the Son is the antichrist. Whoever denies the Son, the same ignores the Father; but he who acknowledges the Son knows the Father also. So keep close that which you'd heard since the beginning.

If the truth of the beginning stays with you, you will stay strong in the Son and Father. He has promised eternal life to us for this. That's what I've written you about the seducers. But his anointing will stay with you, and you don't need to be "taught" by any man, since that anointment teaches you everything, and is the truth, not a lie. You will stay with Him as it has taught you.

Now, students, be faithful to Him so that, when He appears, we may be confident rather than ashamed before Him at his return. If you know that He is good, you know that everyone who does good is based in Him.

Notice the great love that the Father has for us, that we should be called sons of God. Thus the world cannot accept us, because it has not known Him. My friends, we are God's sons, and we don't yet know what we will be. But we know that when He returns, we will be like Him and see Him in truth.

Every man who has Christ as his hope is purified. Anyone who sins breaks the law, since sin is the breaking of the law. You know He came to remove our sins and in Him all are sinless. Anyone who stays with Him doesn't sin. Anyone sinning hasn't seen Him or known Him.

Sons, don't let any man deceive you. He who acts righteously is righteous. While he that commits sin is the Devil's, because the Devil has sinned since the beginning. For that reason the Son of God came to us, to destroy the devil's schemes.

Anyone born in God is sinless, because his seed stays inside him. He cannot sin, since he's born in God. So the children of God are clear, as are the devil's children. Anyone who isn't righteous or doesn't love his brother isn't God's.

You've heard this message since the beginning, to love each other. Not like Cain, who was the devil's and killed his brother. Why'd he kill him? Because his own accomplishments were evil and his brother's were righteous. So don't be despised, brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we've moved from death to life because of our love for our brothers. Anyone who doesn't love his brother stays dead. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know murderers don't have eternal life with Him.

So we see the love of God, who laid down His life for us. We should lay down our lives for our brothers too. Anyone who has been blessed in this world and sees his brother struggling, but has no compassion for him, how can the love of God be in him? My sons, let's not just say or write that we love, but love in action and truth. That way we know we live in the truth, and can be certain before Him. God knows all things, so if our hearts condemn us, he knows too. My friends, if our hearts don't condemn us, we can be confident with God. Anything we ask we will get from him, since we follow his laws and act pleasingly so He likes what He sees.

This is his command: We should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ and love one another as he told us. The man who follows the laws stays in Him, and He stays in him. That's how we know he stays in us! By the Guide he has given to us.

My friends, do not believe every person claiming to be Christian, but test each message with God, because there are many false teachers. Here is how you know what is true: teachers who honestly proclaim that Jesus Christ in the flesh is of God. Every teacher who denies that Jesus Christ is the flesh is not of God. That is the spirit of the Antichrist.

Children, you are of God and triumph over them, because there is more of Him in you than in the worldly person. They are worldly and speak of the world, and the worldly listen to them. We are God's people. Anyone who knows God listens to us. Anyone who doesn't know God, doesn't hear us. So we know the sources of truth and error.

My friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves is from God and knows God. He who doesn't love doesn't know God since God is love.

God made His love for us clear when He sent His only Son to the world, so that we could live through His sacrifice. This is love: not that we Loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son to pay for our sins. My friends, if God loves us like that, we should love each other too.

No man has seen God. If we love each other, God lives within us and His love becomes perfect. So know the we live in Him and He in us, since He gave us His Guide. We've seen and testify that the Father sent the Son to be the World's Savior.

God lives in anyone who acknowledges that Jesus is God's Son, and he lives in God. We have felt and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and anyone living in love lives in God. So our love is perfected so we might have courage on judgment day. Just as He is, we are in this world. Love has no fear, and perfect love rejects fear, because fear torments. A frightened man hasn't been perfected by love. We love Him because He loved us first.

If a man says "I love God" but hates his brother, he's lying. If he doesn't love his brother, who he's seen, how can he love good, who he hasn't?

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and everyone who loves a father, loves the son.

In this way, we know that we love the children of God when we love God, and keep his commandments. This is what it means to love God, to keep his commandments: and his commandments are not hard to keep.

Whatever is born of God can overcome worldly things, and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Who could overcome worldly things, except he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is him who came by blood and water, Jesus Christ; not just by water, but by both water and blood. And it is the Spirit which bears witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Spirit, the water, and the blood: and these three are one. We accept the testimony of men, but how much greater is the testimony of God: for it is his statement that testifies to his Son.

He that believes in the Son of God has the truth within himself; he who does not believe, God has made him a liar, for he disbelieves the record that God gave of his Son.

This is the truth: God gives us eternal life through his Son. Anyone with the Son has life, and anyone who doesn't have the Son of God doesn't have life. I've written this to you believers in the name of God's Son so you'll know you have eternal life. You may believe in the name of God's Son.

We have great confidence in Him, that if we ask Him anything of His will, He hears us. We know that He hears us no matter what we ask, and we know that we will have what we asked Him for.

If a man sees his brother commit an undeadly sin, he should ask God, and He will give them life, even if they commit undeadly sin. Some sin causes death, and I don't say he should pray for it.

All wickedness is sin and not all sin causes death. We know anyone born in God doesn't sin, but instead controls his own actions, and evil Satan can't touch him. We know that we are God's, but the whole world remains wicked.

We know that the Son of God has come to give us true knowledge, so we can know the true God. We live in Him and his true Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and His eternal life. So, my sons, stay clear of idols! Amen.


The Bishop chosen by Christ, to the woman and her children, whom I love, and not only I, but all who have known the truth. For the sake of the truth, which lives within us and shall live within us for all time. May God the Father and his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, bring you grace and peace, in truth and love.

I am most pleased to learn that your children walk in truth in accordance with that we have gained from the Father.

I request of you, madame, that we love one another, not as a new commandment, but as what we have known we must do since the beginning. And those of us who keep His commandments know love, for that is the commandment. As you have heard from the start, you should love and be loved. For there are many who practice deceit, who deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Such people are deceivers and adversaries of Christ. Be aware of yourself, so that you do not backpedal and lose all that we has gained for you, but instead, that we shall gain our reward.

He who sins, and does not believe in Christ, does not have God as an ally. He who follows Christ has both the Father and the Son. If anybody comes to you who does not understand this, do not welcome him into your home, or bid him good tidings. For if you wish him good luck with his ungodly endeavors, you partake in his evil deeds.

I have much to say to you which I cannot write on paper with ink, so I shall come to you, and we will speak face to face, and be rejoice.

The children of your revered sister send their greetings. Amen.


The Bishop, to the beloved Gaius, who I love truly.

Beloved, I wish more than anything that you will be prosperous and healthy, just as your soul has prospered.

I was so happy to learn from our fellow Christians that you had learned the truth, and converted. Nothing makes me happier than hearing that my parishioners know the truth.

Beloved, you do faithfully anything you do to both your brothers and to strangers, which has demonstrated your charity to the Church: you do right by all who you bring closer to God. For his name, they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. Therefore, we should receive the Gentiles, that we might also be volunteers to the truth.

I wrote to the Church, but Diotrephes, who is an elitist, doesn't read my letters. Which is why I will remember his hostility, how he attacked us, and not content with that, how he ignored his brothers, and banned all he could from the Church.

Beloved, don't follow what is evil, but rather follow what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has good knowledge of all men, and of the truth. We acknowledge this, and you know our testimony is true.

Be assured I will come to see you shortly, and we will speak face to face. Peace be with you, and our friends salute you. Greet them by name.


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Ad Gloriam Dei, 31 January 2019—developed by Michael Paul Heart and the editors of Conservapedia.
Revised on the eve of the Solemnity of Pentecost, 30 May 2020, by Michael Paul Heart