heathen for their people and their fortunes. The more the Christians were inclined to see the beginning of the end in the oppressions of that time, the easier access to them did such. writings obtain, and the more readily were they imitated (first Christian sybillines).5

When Jewish fanaticism pressed severely on the Christians of Jerusalem immediately before its destruction, and even James, the Lord's brother (69 A.D.), fell a sacrifice to it; the most of

the temple of Apollo on the Palatine, (Sueton. Aug. c. 31). Although at that time the possession of all soothsaying books was forbidden, yet numerous sybiline predictions were constantly circulated among the people, (Tacit. Ann. vi. 12). The first certain trace of Jewish sybillines is to be found in Joseph. Ant. i. 4, 3, (cf. orac. Sybill. iii. 35). The sybillines now extant (Sybillinorum oraculorum libb. viii. ed. Jo. Opsopoeus. Paris 1589, ed. 3, 1607, gr. 8vo. Servatius Gallaeus. Amst. 1689, 4. Gallandius in his Bibl. pp. i. 133: to these have been lately added, libb. xi.—xiv. in Ang. Maji scriptorum vett. nova collectio, T. iii. p. 3. Romae 1828, 4.) were usually before this time assigned to the second century, and to the Montanists; by many (Cassaubon, Scaliger, Blondel) to Montanus himself. Huet conjectured their authors to be the Gnostics; Cave, Alexandrian Christians; Semler, Tertullian. Grotius regarded them as Jewish productions, afterwards interpolated by Christians. G. J. Vossius, however, perceived that they proceeded from several authors at different times. Birger Thorlacius (libri Sybillistarum veteris ecclesiae crisi, quatenus monumenta christiana sunt, subjecti, Hann. 1815, 8, and conspectus doctr. ch ist. qualis in Sibyllistarum libris continetur, 1816, also in F. Münter miscellanea Hafniensia 1, i. 113) assumed that they had been for the greater part composed between 100 and 170 A.D., in Phrygia,-some of them, too, by Alexandrians. According to Bleek, (über die Entstehung u. Zusammensetzung d. sib. Or. in Schleiermacher's, De Wette's u. Lücke's theol. Zeitschrift i. 120, and ii. 172) the oldest of them are Jewish oracles belonging to the second century before Christ; the youngest, Christian oracles of the fifth century after Christ. The greatest part of the third book, and several sections in the fifth, (1. c. i. 198, ii. 182, 194), proceed from Alexandrian Jews. Gfrörer (Philo ii. 121) agrees with him in this opinion, and points out Jewish-Alexandrian dogmas in these sections.

5

According to Bleek (1. c. i. 240, ii. 232), the fourth book was com posed by a Christian, about 80 A.D., probably in Asia Minor.

6 Josephus Antiq. xx. 9, 1 (also in Eusebius, ii. 13), relates: "The high-priest Ananus, a Sadducee, a severe and cruel man, made use of the time in which, after the death of Festus, the procurator, his successor Albinus had not yet entered on office (63 A.D.): kalíšeɩ ovvéôpiov κριτῶν· καὶ παραγαγὼν εἰς αὐτὸ τὸν ἀδελφὸν Ἰησοῦ τοῦ λεγομένου Χριστοῦ,

Ιάκωβος ὄνομα αὐτῷ, καὶ] τινας [ἑτέρους], ὡς παρανομησάντων κατηγορίαν ποιησάμηνος, παρέδωκε λευσθησομένους. Many pious and zealous Jews were much displeased with this proceeding, and accused Ananus before King Agrippa and Albinus. Agrippa, therefore, deposed him from the office

the members of the church fled to Pella.7 About this time also John repaired to Asia Minor, and there, full of the impressions which he had taken along with him from Palestine, and perceiving in these oppressions the beginning of the last events, wrote the Apocalypse (69 A.D.)s This was the commencing point of a rich apocalyptic literature among the Christians.

τί με

of high priest.” Le Clerc, however, art. crit. ii. 223. Lardner Suppl. vol. iii. cap. 16, sect. 5, and Credner (Einl. u. d. N. T. i. ii. 581) regard, on important grounds, the bracketed words as spurious. On the other hand, Hegesippus, in Euseb. ii. 23, according to the passage given in a preceding note (4, § 26), narrates the death of James in this manner: By his preaching he had gained over many of the people to Christ, and stood generally in the highest repute as the righteous one. Hence the scribes and Pharisees demanded of him a solemn denial of Christ: ἔστησαν οὖν τὸν Ἰάκωβον ἐπὶ τὸ πτερύγιον τοῦ ναοῦ, καὶ ἔκραξαν αὐτῷ καὶ εἶπον· δίκαιε, ᾧ πάντες πείθεσθαι ὀφείλομεν, ἐπεὶ ὁ λαὸς πλανᾶται ὀπίσω Ἰησοῦ τοῦ σταυρωθέντος, ἀπάγγειλον ἡμῖν, τίς ἡ θυρα Ἰησοῦ τοῦ σταυρωθέντος. (θύρα as in Rabbinic y estimate, value. See Credner in the new Jena A. L. Z., August 1843, S. 795. "What is the disclosure, the truth of Christ?") Καὶ ἀπεκρίνατο φωνῇ μεγάλη ἐπερωτᾶτε περὶ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου; καὶ αὐτὸς κάθηται ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ἐκ δεξιῶν τῆς μεγάλης δυνάμεως, καὶ μέλλει ἔρχεσθαι ἐπὶ τῶν νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. Since now many agreed with him, the scribes and Pharisees resolved to put him to death. 'Αναβάντες οὖν κατέβαλον τὸν δίκαιον καὶ ἤρξαντο λιθάζειν αὐτόν· He was not, however, killed instantaneously, but still prayed for his murderers: καὶ λαβών τις ἀπ ̓ αὐτῶν εἰς τῶν κναφέων τὸ ξύλον, ἐν ᾧ ἀπεπίεζε τὰ ἱμάτια, ἤνεγκε κατὰ τῆς κεφαλῆς τοῦ δικαίου. καὶ οὕτως ἐμαρτύρησεν. Καὶ ἔθαψαν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τῷ τόπῳ παρὰ τῷ ναῷ, καὶ ἔτι αὐτοῦ ἡ στήλη μένει παρὰ τῷ ναῷ. Καὶ εὐθὺς Ουεσπασια νὸς πολιορκεῖ αὐτούς. In opposition to Josephus, who places the death of James in the year 63, there agree with the designation of time by Hegesippus, agreeably to which the siege of Jerusalem took place imme.. diately after James's death, Eusebius iii. 11, (Symeon was chosen successror to James, μετά τὴν Ἰακώβου μαρτυρίαν καὶ τὴν αὐτίκα γενομένην ἅλωσιν τῆς Ἱερουσαλήμ), although in his Chronicle he places the death of James and the inauguration of Symeon after Josephus, in the seventh of Nero; the Clementines (so far the Ep. Clemen. Rom. ad Jacob, c. 1, in Cotelerii patres, ap. i. 611, and Clementina epitome de gestis s. Petri, c. 147, 1. c. p. 798, announce that Peter died before James), and the Paschal Chronicle, which (ed. Bonn. i. 460) places the death of James in the first year of Vespasian's reign. Comp. Credner Einleit. in d. N. T., i. ii. 580. Rothe Anfänge d. christl. Kirche, i. 275.

7 Euseb. h. e. iii. 5. Epiphanius haer. xxix. 7, de mensuris et ponderibus, c. 15.

This time is specified by Ewald, comm. in Apoc. p. 48, and Lücke Einleit. in d. Offenbar. Joh. S. 244. I cannot, however, bring myself to refuse to the apostle John the authorship of the book. The author designates hinself as the apostle; the oldest witnesses declare him to be

THIRD CHAPTER.

AGE OF JOHN FROM 70-117.

§ 32.

FATE OF THE JEWISH CHRISTIANS IN PALESTINE.

Although a Jewish-Christian church soon formed itself among the ruins of Jerusalem,' and again selected a relative of Jesus, Symeon, to be its head; yet, after the judgment which had befallen Judaism 3-this church could no longer continue to

80. Had the book been forged in his name thirty years before his death, he would certainly have contradicted it, and this contradiction would have reached us through Irenaeus from the school of John's disciples. On the contrary, the later contradictions of the apostolic origin proceed from doctrinal prepossessions alone. The internal difference in language and mode of thought between the Apocalypse, which John, whose education was essentially Hebrew, and his Christianity Jewish-christian of the Palestinian character, wrote, and the Gospel and Epistles which he had composed after an abode of from twenty to thirty years among the Greeks, is a necessary consequence of the different relations in which the writer was placed, so that the opposite would excite suspicion. There is much at the same time that is cognate, proving continuousness of cultivation in the same author. Comp. F. Lücke Versuch einer vollständigen Einleitung in die Offenbarung Johannis, und in die gesammte apokalyptische Literatur. Bonn. 1832, 8vo.

1 Epiphanius de mensuris et ponderibus, c. 15. According to c. 14, the small Christian church on Mount Zion was among the few buildings that were spared.

2 Euseb. iii. 11. See § 31, note 6. Hegesippus apud Euseb. iv. 22: Καὶ μετὰ τὸ μαρτυρῆσαι Ἰάκωβον τὸν δίκαιον—πάλιν ὁ ἐκ θείου αὐτοῦ Συμεὼν ὁ τοῦ Κλωπά καθίσταται ἐπίσκοπος ὃν προέθεντο πάντες, ὄντα ἀνεψιὸν τοῦ Kupiov, devτepov. Clopas, the father of Symeon, was, according to Hegesippus in Euseb. iii. 11, a brother of Joseph. (Sophron. in app. ad Hieronymi catal. § 6, represents this Symeon as Judas, the brother of James, and moreover the apostle Simon Zelotes. In opposition to this, see Sam. Basnage annales politico-ecclesiastici ad. ann. 31, no. 72.) These Jewish Christians generally preferred to choose relatives of our Lord as presidents of their churches. So Hegesippus relates (in Euseb. iii. 20) that the grandchildren of Judas, a brother of Christ, after they had been set free by Domitian, ἡγήσασθαι τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν, ὡς ἂν δὴ μάρτυρας ὁμοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ γένους ὄντας τοῦ Κυρίου.

3 The feeling of this is plainly expressed in the writings of this period. Barnabae Epist. c. 9: ἡ περιτομὴ, ἐφ ̓ ᾖ πεποίθασι, κατήργηται,

H

be a model mother-church, and the centre of Christendom. We have a proof that these Christians were continually hated by the Jews, in the composition of the work called by naza and in the crucifixion of Symeon at the age of 120 (107). After the death of this man, there also arose an internal division among them. An opposition in the church, which had existed since the apostolic council at Jerusalem, (Acts xv.), but had been hitherto restrained, now broke out openly (Thebuthis); and from

even for the Jews. The law of Moses had only a typical meaning, particularly the laws regarding meats (c. 10); the Jews are not heirs of the promises, but the Christians (c. 13, 14); the Jewish Sabbaths are not agreeable to the Lord, but Sundays are (c. 15); in place of the destroyed Jewish temple appears a spiritual temple (c. 16).

Samuel, the little, is said to have composed it at the instigation of R. Gamaliel in Jafne, where the Sanhedrim met after the destruction of Jerusalem (Talmud. Hierosol. et Babylon. in tract. Berachoth.) Hence this Gamaliel cannot be the older Gamaliel, but his grandson. Cf. Vitringa de synagog. vet. p. 1047. Respecting the name Dr, see Fulleri miscellan. theologic. lib. ii. e. 3. G. E. Edzardus in not. ad Avoda Sara, p. 253 ss. Hieronym. ep. 89, ad Augustin.: Usque hodie per totas Orientis synagogas inter Judaeos haeresis est, quae dicitur Minaearum et a Pharisaeis nunc usque damnatur, quos vulgo Nazaraeos nuncupant, qui credunt in Christum, filium Dei, natum de virgine Maria, et eum dicunt esse, qui sub Pontio Pilato passus est et resurrexit: in quem et nos credimus, sed dum volunt et Judaei esse et Christiani, nec Judaei sunt nec Christiani.

5 Hegesippus in Eusebii, h. e. iii. 32 : ἀπὸ τούτων τῶν αἱρετικῶν κατηγοροῦσί τινες Συμεῶνος τοῦ Κλωπά, ὡς ὄντος ἀπὸ Δαβίδ καὶ Χριστιανοῦ. These heretics can only have been the adherents of the seven Jewish alpéoes, of which Hegesippus in Euseb. ii. 23, and iv. 22, speaks. In the chronographia of Jo. Malala (about 600-ed. Oxon. 1691, 8vo. p. 356) is the following Relatio Tiberiani, or relation of Tiberianus, a president of Palestine, communicated to Trajan, which, if it be genuine, must belong to this time: Απέκαμον τιμωρούμενος καὶ φωνεύων τοὺς Γαλιλαίους, τοὺς τοῦ δόγματος τῶν λεγομένων Χριστιανῶν, κατὰ τὰ ὑμέτερα θεσ πίσματα καὶ οὐ παύονται ἑαυτοὺς μηνύοντες εἰς τὸ ἀναιρεῖσθαι. ὅθεν ἐκοπίασα τούτοις παραινῶν καὶ ἀπειλῶν, μὴ τολμῶν αὐτοὺς μηνύειν μοι υπάρχοντας ἐκ τοῦ προειρημένου δόγματος καὶ ἀποδιωκόμενοι οὐ παύονται. Θεσπίσαι μοι οὖν καταξιώσατε τὰ παριστάμενα τῷ ὑμετέρῳ κράτει τροπαιούχω.. But Dodwell dissertt. Cypr. diss. xi. § 23, and Tillemont, note 2, sur la persécut. de Trajan, (in the Mémoires ed. Bruxelles, 8. tom. ii. p. ii. p. 433 s.) have sufficiently proved the spuriousness of this relation.

6 Hegesippus, in Eusebius iii. 32, says that the church enjoyed a profound peace till the death of Symeon, till the time of Trajan, and continued to be παρθένος καθαρὰ καὶ ἀδιάφθορος. When he designates Thebuthis as the person who corrupted it (Euseb. iv. 22), the connection does not render it necessary to understand the death of James as the

the Nazareans who remained stedfast in the apostolic faith, a party separated which held the Mosaic law to be binding in all cases, and Jesus to be the son of Joseph and Mary. To them the name Ebionites was afterwards for the most part applied; an appellation originally given by the Jews, in derision, to the Christians generally.8 A new party also arose among the Jewish point of time at which Thebuthis appeared; and we must therefore refer to the point of time which was before announced in obvious terms. Least of all can the opinion of Schliemann (Clementinen, S. 460) be justified, according to which, iv. 22 should be understood of the first beginnings of heretical views immediately after the death of James; iii. 32 of the open breaking out of these heresies in the second century. The influence of a Thebuthis, because he was not a bishop, can only have been an open opposition. The first beginnings of heretical views among the Jewish Christians are to be found long before the death of James in the opponents of Paul. It is still more remarkable that Schliemann, p. 448 f. did not farther consider this point of time given by Hegesippus as that in which the sects arose, but places the separation of the Ebionites from the Nazaraeans in the year 136. Comp. my treatise on the Nazaraeans and Ebionites in Stäudlin's and Tzschirner's Archiv. iv. ii. 320. Déßouts, according to Credner (Einl. in d. N. T. i. ii. 619), is not a person, but a collective idea, Chald. navn, sarn, opposition, reluctance, especially abhorrence of the stomach, nausea, hence vomitus, and then generally filth, dirt, much the same as omiλádes, Jude 12. σîλo κai μŵμo, 2 Рeter ii. 13.

7 Comp. Epiphanii haer. 29. According to c. 7, they lived at the time of Epiphanius, towards the end of the fourth century, in Beroea, in Syria, in Coele-Syria, in Decapolis about Pella, and in Cocabe in Basanitis (now a village, Cocab, between Damascus and Nablus, nearer the lat. ter. See Burckhardt's travels, German edition, edited by Gesenius, p. 591).

8 Origenes c. Cels. ii. init. Εβιωναῖοι χρηματίζουσιν οἱ ἀπὸ Ἰουδαίων τὸν Ἰησοῦν ὡς Χριστὸν παραδεξάμενοι. V. 61, οἱ διττοὶ Εβιωναῖοι, ητοι ἐκ παρθένου ὁμολογοῦντες ὁμοίως ἡμῖν τὸν Ἰησοῦν, ἢ οὐχ οὕτω γεγεννῆσθαι, ἀλλ ̓ ὡς τοὺς λοιποὺς ἀνθρώπους. C. 65, Εβιωναῖοι ἀμφότεροι. These two classes cannot, as Schliemann supposes, be the Gnostic and the common Ebionites. He has himself shown, p. 207, that the former could not think of a birth of Christ by a virgin; Origen also calls them Elcesaites; see below, note 10. They are the Nazaraeans and Ebionites whom even Eusebius, h. e. iii. 27, groups together under the common appellation Ebionites, and at the same time obviously draws a distinction between them. The Ebionites, in a stricter sense, arose, according to Epiphanius haer. xxx. 2, at Cocabe, and lived in his day (1. c. c. 18), in Nabathea, Paneas, Moabitis, and Cocabe. Respecting their adherents in Asia Minor, Rome, and Cyprus, of which he also speaks, see below, note 10. The derivation of the name from one Ebion, occurs first in Tertullian de praescript. haeret. c. 33. In the Talmud. Hierosolymit. tract. Joma, fol. 4, col. 3, appears no j, as Lightfoot parergon de excid. urbis,