[1629] This fragment gives us our only information in regard to this Alexander. That there may be some truth in the story told by Apollonius cannot be denied. It is possible that Alexander was a bad man, and that the Montanists had been deceived in him, as often happens in all religious bodies. Such a thing might much more easily happen after the sect had been for a number of years in a flourishing condition than in its earlier years; and the exactness of the account, and the challenge to disprove it, would seem to lend it some weight. At the same time Apollonius is clearly as unprincipled and dishonest a writer as the anonymous, and hence little reliance can be placed upon any of his reports to the discredit of the Montanists. If the anonymous made so many accusations out of whole cloth, Apollonius may have done the same in the present instance; and the fact that many still "worshiped" him would seem to show that Apollonius' accusations, if they possessed any foundation, were at any rate not proven.
[1630] A very common accusation brought against various sects. Upon the significance of it, see Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, I. p. 82, note 2.
[1631] opisthodomos, originally the back chamber of the old temple of Athenæ on the Acropolis at Athens, where the public treasure was kept. It then came to be used of the inner chamber of any temple where the public treasure was kept, and in the present instance is used of the apartment which contained the public records or archives. Just below, Apollonius uses the phrase demosion archeion, in referring to the same thing.
[1632] Matt. x. 9, 10.
[1633] Matt. xii. 33.
[1634] We know, unfortunately, nothing about this proconsul, and hence have no means of fixing the date of this occurrence.
[1635] i.e. of Christ.
[1636] parab?tes
[1637] eita epipseus?menos to onomati tou kuriou apolelutai planesas tous ekei pistous. The meaning seems to be that while in prison he pretended to be a Christian, and thus obtained the favor of the brethren, who procured his release by using their influence with the judge.
[1638] We have no means of controlling the truth of this statement.
[1639] demosion archeion.
[1640] hon ho prophetes sunonta pollois ?tesin agnoei, as is read by all the mss., followed by the majority of the editors. Heinichen reads ho ho prophetes sunon pollois ?tesin agnoei, but the emendation is quite unnecessary. The agnoei implies ignorance of the man's true character; although with him so many years, he knows nothing about him, is ignorant of his true character! The sentence is evidently ironical.
[1641] ten hupostasin
[1642] b?ptetai
[1643] stibizetai
[1644] Knowing what we do of the asceticism and the severe morality of the Montanists, we can look upon the implications of this passage as nothing better than baseless slanders. That there might have been an individual here and there whose conduct justified this attack cannot be denied, but to bring such accusations against the Montanists in general was both unwarranted and absurd, and Apollonius cannot but have been aware of the fact. His language is rather that of a bully or braggadocio who knows the untruthfulness of his statements, than of a man conscious of his own honesty and of the reliability of his account.
[1645] On the date of Apollonius' work, see above, note 3.
[1646] See chap. 16, §17.
[1647] This Thraseas is undoubtedly to be identified with Thraseas, "bishop and martyr of Eumenia," mentioned by Polycrates, as quoted in chap. 24, below. We know no more about him than is told us there.
[1648] Clement (Strom. VI. 5) records the same tradition, quoting it from the Preaching of Peter, upon which work, see Bk. III. chap. 3, note 8, above.
[1649] Compare Eusebius' promise in Bk. III. chap. 24, §18, and see note 21 on that chapter.
[1650] No one else, so far as I am aware, records this tradition, but it is of a piece with many others in regard to John which were afloat in the early Church.
Chapter XIX.--Serapion on the Heresy of the Phrygians.
1. Serapion, [1651] who, as report says, succeeded Maximinus [1652] at that time as bishop of the church of Antioch, mentions the works of Apolinarius [1653] against the above-mentioned heresy. And he alludes to him in a private letter to Caricus and Pontius, [1654] in which he himself exposes the same heresy, and adds the following words: [1655]
2. "That you may see that the doings of this lying band of the new prophecy, so called, are an abomination to all the brotherhood throughout the world, I have sent you writings [1656] of the most blessed Claudius Apolinarius, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia."
3. In the same letter of Serapion the signatures of several bishops are found, [1657] one of whom subscribes himself as follows:
"I, Aurelius Cyrenius, a witness, [1658] pray for your health."
And another in this manner:
"Ælius Publius Julius, [1659] bishop of Debeltum, a colony of Thrace. As God liveth in the heavens, the blessed Sotas in Anchialus desired to cast the demon out of Priscilla, but the hypocrites did not permit him." [1660]
4. And the autograph signatures of many other bishops who agreed with them are contained in the same letter.
So much for these persons.
[1651] Both versions of the Chron. agree in putting the accession of Serapion into the eleventh year of Commodus (190 a.d.), and that of his successor Asclepiades into the first year of Caracalla, which would give Serapion an episcopate of twenty-one years (Syncellus says twenty-five years, although giving the same dates of accession for both bishops that the other versions give). Serapion was a well-known person, and it is not too much to think that the dates given by the Chron. in connection with him may be more reliable than most of its dates. The truth is, that from the present chapter we learn that he was already bishop before the end of Commodus' reign, i.e. before the end of 192 a.d. Were the statement of Eutychius,--that Demetrius of Alexandria wrote at the same time to Maximus of Antioch and Victor of Rome,--to be relied upon, we could fix his accession between 189 and 192 (see Harnack's Zeit des Ignatius, p. 45). But the truth is little weight can be attached to his report. While we cannot therefore reach certainty in the matter, there is no reason for doubting the approximate accuracy of the date given by the Chron. As to the time of his death, we can fix the date of Asclepiades' accession approximately in the year 211 (see Bk. VI. chap. II, note 6), and from the fragment of Alexander's epistle to the Antiochenes, quoted in that chapter, it seems probable that there had been a vacancy in the see of Antioch for some time. But from the mention of Serapion's epistles to Domninus (Bk. VI. chap. 12) we may gather that he lived until after the great persecution of Severus (a.d. 202 sq.). From Bk. VI. chap. 12, we learn that Serapion was quite a writer; and he is commemorated also by Jerome (de vir. ill. c. 41) and by Socrates (H. E. III. 7). In addition to the epistle quoted here, he addressed to Domninus, according to Bk. VI. chap. 12, a treatise (Jerome, ad Domninum...volumen composuit), or epistle (the Greek of Eusebius reads simply ta, but uses the same article to describe the epistle or epistles to Caricus and Pontius, so that the nature of the writing is uncertain), as well as some other epistles, and a work on the Gospel of Peter. These were the only writings of his which Eusebius had seen, but he reports that there were probably other works extant. There are preserved to us only the two fragments quoted by Eusebius in these two chapters. Serapion also played a prominent rôle in the tradition of the Edessene church, as we learn from Zahn's Doctrina Addai (Gött. Gel. Anz. 1877, St. 6, p. 173, 179, according to Harnack's Zeit des Ignatius, p. 46 sqq.).
[1652] On Maximinus, see Bk. IV. chap. 24, note 6.
[1653] See Bk. IV. chap. 27, note 1.
[1654] Caricus and Pontius (called Ponticus in this passage by most of the mss. of Eusebius, but Pontius by one of the best of them, by Nicephorus, Jerome, and Eusebius himself in Bk. VI. chap. 12, which authorities are followed by Stroth, Burton, Schwegler, and Heinichen) are called in Bk. VI. chap. 12, ekklesiastikous andras. They are otherwise unknown personages. In that chapter the plural article t? is used of the writing, or writings, addressed to Caricus and Pontius, implying that hupomnemata is to be supplied. This seems to imply more than one writing, but it is not necessary to conclude that more than the single epistle mentioned here is meant, for the plural hupomnemata was often used in a sort of collective sense to signify a collection of notes, memoranda, &c.
[1655] This fragment is given by Routh, Rel. Sacræ, and, in English, in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, VIII. p. 775.
[1656] See Bk. IV. chap. 27, note 5.
[1657] Valesius justly remarks that Eusebius does not say that these bishops signed Serapion's epistle, but only that their signatures or notes (huposemeioseis) were contained in the epistle. He thinks it is by no means probable that a bishop of Thrace (the nationality of the other bishops we do not know) should have signed this epistle of Serapion's, and he therefore concludes that Serapion simply copies from another epistle sent originally from Thrace. This is possible; but at the end of the chapter Eusebius says that other bishops put in their signatures or notes with their own hands (autographoi semeioseis), which precludes the idea that Serapion simply copies their testimony from another source, and if they signed thus it is possible that the Thracian bishop did likewise. It may be that Serapion took pains to compose a semi-official communication which should have the endorsement of as many anti-Montanistic bishops as possible, and that, in order to secure their signatures he sent it about from one to the other before forwarding it to Caricus and Pontius.
[1658] Of this Aurelius Cyrenius we know nothing. It is possible that he means to call himself simply a witness (martus) to the facts recorded by Serapion in his epistle, but more probable that he uses the word to indicate that he has "witnessed for Christ" under persecution.
[1659] Ælius Publius Julius is also an otherwise unknown personage. Debeltum and Anchialus were towns of Thrace, on the western shore of the Black Sea.
[1660] Lightfoot (Ignatius, II. 111) suggests that this Sotas (Sotas) may be identical with the Zoticus (Zotikos) mentioned in the preceding chapter, the interchange of the initial S and Z being very common. But we learn from chap. 16 that Zoticus was bishop of Comana, so that he can hardly be identified with Sotas, bishop of Anchialus.