The Sacred History

I have undertaken to compress briefly the things set forth in the Sacred Letters from the beginning of the world, and to tell them summarily, with a distinction of times, down to our own memory; many earnestly demanding this of me, who were eager to know the Divine things by a compendious reading. Following their wish, I have not spared my labor, so as to enclose in two little books what was set down in a great many volumes; aiming so much at brevity that I have withdrawn almost nothing of the events. It seemed to me, moreover, not absurd, since I had run through the Sacred History up to the cross of Christ and the acts of the Apostles, to connect also what came after: I am about to speak of the destruction of Jerusalem, the persecutions of the Christian people, and presently the times of peace, and again of all things thrown into confusion by the internal dangers of the churches.

But this I shall not be ashamed to confess, that wherever reason required it, I have made use of pagan historians for distinguishing the times and continuing the sequence, and have borrowed from them what was lacking for the completion of knowledge; so that I might both instruct the unlearned and confute the learned. Yet as for those things which I have set down abridged from the sacred volumes, I would not wish to come before my readers as such an authority that, the sources from which these things are derived being passed over, these alone should be sought after; but rather, when one has become familiar with those, let him here recognize what he has read there. For indeed the whole mysteries of divine things can be drawn only from the very fountains themselves. Now I shall make the beginning of my narration.

The world was established by the Lord almost six thousand years ago now, as we shall set out in the course of this volume: although those who have published their researches into the reckoning of times agree but little among themselves. Since this happens either by the will of God or by the fault of antiquity, it ought to be free from calumny. Now when the world had been founded, man was made. The man's name was Adam, the woman's Eve. But being placed in Paradise, when they had tasted the forbidden tree, they were cast out, as exiles, into this our earth. Then from these Cain and Abel were born. But wicked Cain slew his brother. He had a son Enoch, by whom a city was first founded, called by its founder's name. From him Irad was born, and from him Maviael.

This man had a son Mathusalem; and he begot Lamech, by whom a certain young man is said to have been slain, yet the name of the one slain is not recorded: which indeed is reckoned by the wise to have been sent beforehand as a token of a future mystery. Therefore Adam, after the death of his younger son, begot a son Seth, when he had already completed his two hundred and thirtieth year of age. He lived nine hundred and thirty years. Seth begot Enos, Enos Cainan, Cainan Malaleel, Malaleel Iared, Iared begot Enoch, who is recorded to have been taken up by God on account of his righteousness. His son was called Mathusala, who begot Lamech, of whom Noah was born, outstanding in righteousness, and dear and acceptable to the Lord above other mortals.

At that time, when the human race had already multiplied, the angels, whose seat was heaven, being captivated by the beauty of comely virgins, pursued unlawful desires; and degenerate from their own nature and origin, leaving the higher regions of which they were inhabitants, mingled themselves in marriage with mortals. These, gradually sowing harmful practices, corrupted the human offspring: from whose union the Giants are said to have been produced, since the mixture of natures differing from one another engendered monsters.

Offended by these things, and above all by the wickedness of men, which had proceeded beyond measure, God had decreed to blot out the human race entirely. But Noah, a righteous man, his innocent life exempted him from the sentence already determined. He, being warned by the Lord that a flood was impending over the earth, constructed an ark of immense size out of timbers; and, smeared with pitch, rendered it impervious to the waters: in which he, together with his wife and three sons and as many daughters-in-law, was shut up. Pairs of birds also, and likewise of beasts of different kind, were received into the same enclosure; all else was consumed by the flood.

Therefore Noah, when he perceived that the rain had now ceased, and that the ark was being carried about upon a quiet sea; supposing, as was the case, that the waters were receding, sent out first a raven to explore the matter, and it not returning (detained, as I conjecture, by corpses), he sent forth a dove, which, not finding a place to settle, returned. Sent forth again, it brought back an olive leaf: a clear sign that the tops of the trees were becoming bare. Sent out a third time at last, it did not return: whence it was perceived that the waters had ceased. Thus Noah went forth from the ark. This took place, as I find, one thousand two hundred and forty-two years from the beginning of the world.

And first Noah set up an altar to the Lord, and offered victims from the birds. Presently he is blessed by the Lord along with his sons, and received the precept that he should not eat blood, nor shed the blood of man: because the very beginning of the world, the book of that precept, Cain had defiled. Now while the age was still empty, of the sons of Noah there was Sem. For he had three, Sem, Cham, Japheth. But Cham, because he had laughed at his father overcome by wine, deserved his father's curse. His son, named Chus, begot the giant Nebrod, by whom the city of Babylon is recorded to have been built. Very many towns are also recorded to have been founded at that time, which it was not my purpose to pursue by name. But when the human race multiplied, and mortals occupied diverse places and islands, all still used but a single language; until the multitude, which was to be dispersed over the whole earth, drew itself together into one.

These, according to the custom of human ingenuity, had the plan of seeking fame by some notable work, before they should be separated one from another. Thus they undertook to make a tower that should reach to heaven; by the will of God, so that the labors of the workers might be hindered, they began to speak, departing from their accustomed manner of speech, in many different and mutually unintelligible kinds of tongues: whereby they were the more readily scattered, since one would easily leave another as if a foreigner. But the world was so divided among the sons of Noah, that Sem was contained within the East, Japheth the West, Cham in the middle regions. Thus the succession drawn down to Abram had nothing indeed notable or memorable in itself.

Abram was born of his father Thara, in the year one thousand and seventy after the flood. Abram's wife was called Sara: and their first dwelling was in the region of the Chaldeans. Thence he sojourned at Charran together with his father. At that time, being warned by the Lord, leaving his house, his country and his father, and taking with him Lot, his brother's son, he set out into the land of the Chananæans, and settled in the place called Sichem. Presently, on account of a scarcity of grain, he withdrew to Egypt, and afterward returned. Lot, because of the multitude of his household, parted from his uncle, so that they might have the use of the ampler spaces of the region then empty, and settled in Sodom. That town is recorded to have been infamous for its inhabitants, men rushing upon men, and for that reason hateful to the Lord. At that time the kings of the neighboring nations were in arms, though before this there had been no contest among mortals.

But against those who were assailing the neighboring regions in war, the kings of Sodom, Gomorrha, and the neighboring regions broke out into battle; and being routed at the first onset, they yielded the victory. Then Sodom, plundered by the victors, became spoil to the enemy; and Lot was led away into captivity. When Abram had learned this, promptly arming his servants, three hundred and eighteen in number, he drove into flight the kings, fierce with victory, stripped of their spoil and arms. Then he was blessed by the priest Melchisedech, to whom he gave a tenth of the spoil: the rest he restored to those from whom it had been taken.

At that same time the Lord spoke to Abram, and promised that his seed would be multiplied like the sands of the sea and the stars of heaven; and it was foretold that his seed would be a stranger, and his descendants would endure servitude in a hostile land for four hundred years, afterward to be restored to liberty. Then his name and that of his wife were changed by the addition of one letter: thus now from Abram he is called Abraham, from Sara, Sarra. Of which matter indeed it is not the business of this work to expound the not-empty mystery. At the same time the law of circumcision was imposed on Abraham. He had, moreover, a son by his maidservant, Ismael. And when he himself was a hundred years old, and his wife ninety, the Lord promised them a future son Isaac, who had come to him with two angels. Thence the angels, sent to Sodom, found Lot sitting at the gate.

When he, thinking them to be men, had received them into hospitality and had them dining at his house; the wicked youth of the town demanded the new guests for outrage. Lot, offering his daughters in place of the guests, since those whose desire was rather for what was forbidden would not consent, was himself dragged off for outrage. The angels, promptly rescuing him from injury, poured blindness over the eyes of the shameless men. Then Lot, informed by the guests that the town was to be destroyed, went forth promptly with his wife and daughters: it was, however, forbidden them to look back. But the woman, not very obedient to the command (by the evil of humankind, whereby forbidden things are the more painfully abstained from), turned back her eyes, and is recorded to have been immediately turned into a mass. But Sodom was consumed by divine fires. Lot's daughters, however, thinking that the human race had perished, sought intercourse with their father when made drunk; from whom Moab and Ammon were born.

At about the same time, when Abraham was also a hundred years old, his son Isaac was born. Then Sarra drove out the maidservant, of whom Abraham had received a son; she is recorded to have dwelt in the desert together with her son, and to have been defended by the protection of the Lord. Not long after, the Lord, testing Abraham's faith, demanded that his son Isaac be offered by his father. He, not hesitating to offer him, when he had laid the boy upon the altar and was drawing the sword, a voice was sent from heaven, that he should spare the boy. A ram was at hand for the victim: and the sacrifice having been completed, the Lord spoke to Abraham, promising the things he had already pledged. But Sarra, when she was living her hundred and twenty-seventh year, died. Her body was buried by her husband's care in Hebron, a town of the Chananæans: for there Abraham was residing.

Then Abraham, seeing his son Isaac of youthful age (for he was then in his fortieth year), commanded his servant to seek a wife for him; yet from that tribe and land from which he himself seemed to have sprung: only that, once the girl was found, he should bring her into the land of the Chananæans, and should not think that he would return to his native soil for the sake of a marriage. And that he might carry out these commands diligently, having touched his master's thigh, he gave an oath. Thus the servant set out into Mesopotamia, and came to the town of Nachor, Abraham's brother; and he came into the house of Bathuel the Syrian, son of Nachor. Having caught sight of his daughter Rebecca, a beautiful virgin, he asked for her, and brought her to his master. After this Abraham took a wife named Cetura, who in Paralipomenon is called a concubine; and he had sons by her.

But Isaac, born of Sarra, he made heir of his substance: to those, however, whom he had had by concubines, he gave gifts; and thus they were separated from Isaac. Abraham died, having completed a hundred and seventy-five years. His body was placed beside the tomb of his wife Sarra.

But Rebecca, long barren, by her husband's constant prayers to the Lord, in about the twentieth year from the day of the marriage brought forth twins, who are often recorded to have leapt within their mother's womb: and it was declared by the Lord's answer that two peoples were being foretold in these, and that the elder should be subject to the beginning of the younger. But the one born first, rough with hair, was called Esau; the younger was named Jacob. At that time a grievous scarcity of grain had come upon the lands: by which necessity Isaac withdrew to Gerara, to king Abimelec, being warned by the Lord not to go down into Egypt. To him the possession of the whole of that land is promised, and there he is blessed; and, having multiplied in flocks and in all substance, through the envy of the inhabitants he is driven out. Driven out, he settled at the Well of the Oath.

Now, being heavier with years, his eyes clouded over, when Esau prepared to bless his son, by the counsel of his mother Rebecca, Jacob offered himself to be blessed in his brother's place. Thus Jacob, to be worshipped by princes and nations, is set before his brother. At which things Esau, enraged, was plotting death against his brother. From this fear Jacob, urged by his mother, fled into Mesopotamia, being warned by his father to take a wife from the house of Laban, Rebecca's brother: so great was their care, even while settled in foreign lands, to draw their lineage nonetheless from within their own family.

So Jacob, having set out into Mesopotamia, is recorded to have seen the Lord in his sleep: and on this account, holding the place of the dream sacred, he took a stone from it; and he vowed, if he should return in prosperous circumstances, that it should be for him a monument of the house of the Lord; and that he would give to the Lord a tenth of all that should be acquired by him. Thence he betook himself to Laban, his mother's brother, who, recognizing him as his sister's son, received him kindly into hospitality.

Laban had two daughters, Leah and Rachel; but Leah was rather plain of eye, while Rachel is recorded to have been beautiful: captivated by whose beauty, Jacob burned with love for the maiden; and asking her father for her in marriage, he bound himself to seven years of service. But when the time was fulfilled, Leah was substituted for him; and he was again subjected to seven years of service, and Rachel was given to him. But we are told that she was long barren, while Leah was fertile: these are the names of the sons whom Jacob had by Leah: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun; and Dinah. From Leah's maidservant were born Gad and Asher, and from Rachel's maidservant, Dan and Naphtali. But Rachel, when childbearing was now despaired of, brought forth Joseph.

Then Jacob, desiring to return to his father, when his father-in-law Laban had given him part of the flocks as wages for his service, being thought by his son-in-law Jacob too little fair concerning these matters, and Jacob suspecting deceit from him, departed secretly in about the twenty-first year since he had come. But Rachel, without her father's knowledge, stole away the idols by theft: for which wrong Laban pursued his son-in-law, but the idols not being found, peace was made, and he returned; earnestly entreating his son-in-law not to bring other wives in upon his daughters. Jacob, having departed thence, is recorded to have seen angels and the camp of the Lord. But when he intended to journey past the region of Edom, which his brother Esau inhabited, having first sent messengers and gifts, he tested his brother, of whom he was suspicious: then Esau came forth to meet his brother; yet Jacob did not trust himself further to his brother.

But on the day before the brothers met each other, it is related that the Lord, having assumed human form, wrestled with Jacob: and though Jacob had prevailed against the Lord, yet he was not ignorant that this was no mortal: he demanded to be blessed by him. Then his name was changed by him, so that he was called Israel instead of Jacob. But when he in turn asked the Lord's name of the Lord, the answer was given that it was not to be sought, because it was wonderful. But from the wrestling, the breadth of Jacob's thigh became numb.

Therefore Israel, turning aside from his brother's home, moved his company forward to Salem, a town of the Shechemites, and there, having received the place for a price, he set up his tent. Over this town Hamor the Hivite, a prince, presided. His son Shechem defiled by rape Dinah, the daughter of Jacob born of Leah. When this became known, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, killed by treachery all the males in the town, and vigorously avenged their sister's injury. The town was plundered by the sons of Jacob, and all its spoil carried away. It is recorded that Jacob took this deed very much amiss. Soon, warned by the Lord, he went to Bethel, and there set up an altar to the Lord. From there he pitched his tent in the region of the tower of Gader. Rachel died in childbirth. The boy was called Benjamin. Isaac died at the age of one hundred and eighty years.

But Esau was powerful in riches, having also taken wives from the nation of the Canaanites: whose lineage I have not thought fit to insert in a work so condensed. If anyone is more studious, let him turn back to the origins. After his father's death, Jacob dwelt in the same land in which Isaac had lived: his sons had withdrawn somewhat from him with the flocks for the sake of pasture; yet Joseph and the young Benjamin had remained at home. Joseph was very dear to his father, and for that reason hateful to his brothers: likewise, because through his frequent dreams it seemed to be portended that he would become greater than all of them. Therefore, being sent by his father to inspect the flocks and to visit his brothers, he presented an opportunity for wrong. For when his brother was seen, they formed a plan for his death: but Reuben, whose mind shrank from so great a crime, opposed it, and he was let down into a pit.

Soon, at Judah's persuasion, they were brought to a milder plan, and sold him to merchants who were then heading to Egypt, and by these he was delivered to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh.

At about this same time Judah, son of Jacob, took Shua the Canaanite in marriage, from whom he raised three sons, Er, Onan, Shelah. But Er was joined in marriage to Tamar; when he died, Onan took his brother's wife; who, because he spilled his seed upon the ground, is recorded to have been slain by the Lord. Then Tamar, having assumed the guise of a harlot, was joined with her father-in-law; and from this union she brought forth twins. In that birth, moreover, this was wondrous, that when the child came forth, in order to distinguish which was born first, the midwife had bound his hand with scarlet thread, but the child was drawn back into his mother's womb, and was born the next day. The names given to the infants were Perez and Zerah. But Joseph, being kindly treated by the royal officer who had bought him at a price, and managing his house and household; he himself being of remarkable comeliness, had turned the eyes of his master's wife upon himself.

And when she was consumed with love for him, and, her advances often not being answered, she falsely accuses him of a crime, and complains to her husband that violation had been attempted against her: thus Joseph was thrown into prison. In that same custody were two officers of the king, who, when they had related their dreams to Joseph, he, divining the future from the dream, pronounced that one of them would pay the penalty with his head, and the other would be released; and so it happened. Then after two years a dream was presented to the king. Since this could not be resolved by the wise men of the Egyptians, that officer of the king, released from prison, reminds the king that Joseph is a wondrous interpreter of dreams. So Joseph is released, and interpreted the dream to the king: that in the next seven years there would be the greatest abundance of crops, and in the following years scarcity.

Struck by this fear, the king, seeing the divine spirit in Joseph, set him over the matter of grain, sharing rule with him equally. Then Joseph, since grain was abundant throughout all Egypt, gathered together a great quantity: and having multiplied the granaries, he had provided against the coming famine. At that time the hope and salvation of Egypt was placed in him. At about this same time he begot two sons by Asenath, Manasseh and Ephraim. He himself, when he received supreme power from the king, was thirty years old; for he had been sold by his brothers at the age of seventeen.

Meanwhile, with matters in Egypt well arranged against the famine, a grievous scarcity of grain shook the whole world. Compelled by this necessity, Jacob sent his sons into Egypt, keeping only Benjamin at home with him. So the brothers approach Joseph, who held power over affairs and in whose hands the disposal of grain lay, and worship him after the royal custom. When he saw them, cunningly concealing recognition, he charged that they had come as enemies, and had secretly come to spy out the land. He was anguished, however, because he did not see his brother Benjamin. The matter was therefore brought to this point, that they should promise his presence: doubtless so that it might be inquired of him whether these men had entered Egypt for the purpose of spying. As a pledge of the promise, Simeon was handed over as hostage: grain was given to them free of charge. Returning again, therefore, they brought Benjamin down, as had been agreed.

Then Joseph allowed himself to be recognized by his brothers, not without shame on the part of those who had done ill. So he sent them home laden with grain, and given many gifts, forewarning them that there would still be five years of famine: that they should move to him with their father and all their offspring and household. So Jacob went down into Egypt, the Egyptians rejoicing greatly, the king rejoicing, kindly received by his son. This took place in the one hundred and thirtieth year of Jacob's age; and in the year 3360 from the flood: moreover, from the time when Abraham settled in the land of the Canaanites to the time when Jacob entered Egypt, 215 years are reckoned. So Jacob, in the seventeenth year since he had come into Egypt, pressed by illness, entreats his son Joseph to restore his body to his own sepulcher.

Then Joseph presented his sons to his father to be blessed; and when they were blessed, though he had preferred the younger to the elder by right of blessing, he hallowed all his sons with blessing. He died at the age of one hundred and forty-seven years. The funeral was magnificently arranged: his body was laid in the sepulcher of Joseph's ancestors. His brothers, after their father's death, fearful because of their conscience, he treated kindly. Joseph himself died at the age of one hundred and ten years.

The Hebrews, then, who had come into Egypt; it is incredible to relate how quickly they increased in number, and, their offspring multiplying, filled Egypt. But when the king who had favored them kindly for Joseph's merit had died, they were oppressed by the rule of the succeeding kings: for hard labor of building cities was imposed upon them; and because their abundant multitude was now feared, lest at some time they should vindicate their liberty by arms, they were compelled by royal edict to drown newly born infants in the waters. Nor was it permitted to conceal this cruel command. At that time Pharaoh's daughter, finding an infant in the river, took care to raise him as her son: she gave the boy the name Moses. This Moses, when he had reached manhood, seeing a Hebrew being beaten by an Egyptian, moved by grief, vindicating his brother from injury, killed the Egyptian with a blow of his heel.

Soon, fearing punishment for the deed, he fled into the land of Midian; and, lodging with Jethro, priest of that region, he took his daughter Zipporah in marriage, and by her raised two sons, Gershom and Eliezer. In this stretch of time was Job, who by the law of nature embraced both the knowledge of God and all righteousness, very rich in wealth, and the more illustrious in that he was neither corrupted by these while they were intact, nor debased when they were lost. For when, through the devil, he was stripped of his goods, and even bereaved of his children, and at last afflicted with dreadful sores, he could not be conquered so as to sin in any part through impatience of grief. At last, having obtained the reward of divine testimony, restored to health, he received back double all that he had lost.

But the Hebrews, pressed by the multiplied evil of servitude, turned with complaints toward heaven, waiting for the hope of help from God. Then, as Moses was pasturing sheep, a bush suddenly appeared burning, yet with flames harmless, which was the more wondrous. Astonished by this novelty, he approached nearer to the bush, and at once God spoke to him in words to this effect: that He was the Lord of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; whose offspring, oppressed by the dominion of the Egyptians, He desired to snatch from their evils: therefore he should undertake a journey to the king of Egypt, and offer himself as leader to restore the people to liberty. As Moses hesitated, He strengthens him with power, imparting to him the ability to perform signs. So Moses, having set out for Egypt, signs first having been shown among his own people, taking his brother Aaron with him, went to the king: he declares that he has been sent by God, and that he speaks the words of God, that he should let the Hebrew people go.

But the king, denying that he knew the Lord, refused to obey the command. And when Moses, in testimony of God's commands, had turned his rod into a serpent, and soon turned all the waters into blood, and had filled the whole land with frogs; the Chaldeans doing similar things, he declared that whatever was done through Moses was magic art rather than the power of God; until, with lice brought upon the land, the earth was filled, the Chaldeans confessing that these things were done by divine majesty. Then the king, compelled by the evil, summoning Moses and Aaron to him, grants the people power to depart, provided only that they turn away the plague that had been brought upon them. But when the plague was removed, his mind, uncontrolled, turned back upon itself, and did not allow the Israelites to depart, as had been agreed. At last he was bruised and overcome by ten plagues upon his body and his kingdom.

But on the day before the people went out of Egypt, they, still untaught by the times, were instructed by the commands of the Lord: that they should recognize that month, which then was, as the first of all months: moreover, the sacrifice of that day was to be celebrated as a solemnity for the following ages in such a way that on the fourteenth day of the month an unblemished lamb, a yearling, should be slain as a victim; the doorposts should be smeared with its blood: the flesh was to be eaten entirely, but the bone was not to be broken: for seven days they should abstain from leaven, use unleavened bread, and hand down this rite to posterity.

Thus the people went out, rich in their own resources, and made yet richer by the spoils of Egypt: whose number, from the seventy-five Hebrews who had first gone down into Egypt, had reached six hundred thousand men [lacuna] and from the time when Abraham had first come into the land of the Canaanites, in the four hundred and thirtieth year: but from the flood, one thousand five hundred and seventy-five years. So, having gone forth in haste, a pillar of cloud went before them by day, and a pillar of fire by night. But since, because of the intervening gulf of the Red Sea, the way led past the land of the Philistines; lest afterward, the Hebrews spurning the wilderness, the opportunity of returning to Egypt by a known route through continuous lands should be opened to them, they were turned aside by God's will, and were brought into the Red Sea, and there, hesitating, set up their camp.

When this was reported to the king: that the Hebrew people had come, by error of the way, into a sea that lay before them: that there was no exit for them, the element opposing; raging in spirit, because he was tormented that so many thousands of men were slipping away from his kingdom and power, he quickly led out his army. And now from a distance arms and standards and battle lines stretched widely over the open plains were seen, when, the Hebrews trembling with fear and gazing at the sky, Moses, warned by God, struck the sea with his rod and split it. Thus for the people, the waters yielding to either side, the journey was passable as though on dry land. Nor did the Egyptian king hesitate to pursue those who were withdrawing, and entering the sea where it lay open, soon, as the waters came together, he was destroyed with his whole army.

Then Moses, exulting in the safety of his people, the destruction of his enemies, and in valor, sang a song to the Lord, and the whole throng, of both male and female sex, did likewise. But when they had entered the wilderness, and had already been travelling for three days, they were pressed by scarcity of water, and water that was found could not be used because of its bitterness. And then for the first time the stubbornness of the unruly people appeared. And now it was being turned against Moses, when, instructed by God, he cast wood into the waters, which had this power, that it restored a sweet taste to the flowing waters. Thence the host advanced, and encamped at Elim, where twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees were found. Again the people, complaining of hunger, rebuked Moses, longing for the servitude of Egypt along with fullness of belly. Then a flock of quails, sent from above, filled the camp.

But on the following day those who had gone out beyond the camp noticed the ground covered with certain small pods; their appearance was like that of coriander seed, with an icy whiteness, such as we often see the ground covered with when hoarfrost has settled over it in the winter months. Then through Moses the people were instructed that this bread had been sent to them as a gift of God: each one should take for his own use, in vessels prepared for the purpose, only as much as would suffice for one day according to the number of persons; on the sixth day, however, since it was not lawful to gather it on the sabbath, they should take a double portion. But the people, as always, little heeding what was said, after the manner of human nature, did not restrain their greed, and, from what they had stored up, made provision also for the following day.

But what had been kept back began to seethe with worms and give off a dreadful stench; whereas what had been reserved on the sixth day for the sabbath remained whole. This the Hebrews used as food for forty years, its taste being close to honey, and its name is handed down as Manna. And as a testimony of the divine gift, Moses is said to have kept a full gomor of it in a golden vessel.

The people, advancing from there, when tried by scarcity of water, scarcely refrained from destroying their leader. Then Moses, by the Lord's command, striking the rock with his staff at a place called Horeb, brought forth an abundant supply of water. But when they had come to Raphidim, the Amalekites laid waste the people with their incursions. Moses, having led out his men to battle and set Joshua over the combatants, taking with him Aaron and Hur to be witnesses of the battle, and also for the sake of praying to the Lord, went up the mountain. But when the battle lines had clashed with uncertain outcome, Joshua, victorious through the prayers of Moses, cut down the enemy into the night. About this same time Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, together with his daughter Zipporah (who, having been married to Moses, had remained at home when her husband set out for Egypt) and her children, having learned of the things that were being done through Moses, came to him.

By his counsel Moses arranged the ranks of the people, setting over them tribunes, centurions, and decurions, and handed down to posterity a necessary system of discipline. Jethro returned to his own country. Thence they came to Mount Sinai. There Moses is instructed by the Lord that the people should be sanctified, as they were about to hear the voice of God: and this was carefully done. But when God stood upon the mountain, the air was shaken by mighty blasts of trumpets, and thick clouds rolled in with frequent lightnings. But Moses and Aaron were near the Lord on the summit of the mountain, while the people stood at the base of the mountain. Thus the law was given, manifold and abundant, in the words of God, and often repeated: if anyone shall wish to be more curious about it, let him go to the source itself: we touch upon it briefly.

Thou shalt not have, He says, other gods before me: Thou shalt not make thyself an idol: Thou shalt not take the name of thy God in vain: Thou shalt do no work on the sabbath: Honor thy father and thy mother: Thou shalt not kill: Thou shalt not commit adultery: Thou shalt not steal: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor: Thou shalt not covet anything of thy neighbor's.

When these things had been spoken by God, while trumpets sounded around them, lamps blazed, and smoke covered the mountain, the people shuddered with fear, unable to bear the words of God; and they demanded of Moses that the Lord speak to him alone, and that he then report to the people what he had heard. The ordinances of God to Moses are of this kind: A Hebrew boy bought with money shall serve six years, and after this shall be free: but one who remains in servitude of his own will shall have his ear pierced. Whoever kills a man shall pay the penalty with his head: whoever does so unwittingly shall duly be exiled. Whoever strikes his father or mother, or reviles them, is subject to capital punishment. If anyone sells a stolen Hebrew, he shall be put to death. If anyone strikes his own male or female slave, and death results from that blow, he shall be liable to judgment. If anyone causes a woman to miscarry an unformed child, he shall be put to death.

If anyone knocks out the eye or tooth of a slave, the slave shall be freed as recompense. If a bull kills a man, it shall be stoned: if the owner, knowing the beast's vice, did not take precaution, he too shall be stoned; or he may redeem himself with a price, as much as the accuser shall demand. If a bull kills a slave, thirty didrachmas of money shall be paid to the owner. If anyone leaves an open pit uncovered, and an animal falls into the pit, he shall pay the owner the price of the animal. If one bull kills another's bull, the living animal shall be sold, and the owners shall divide the price; they shall also divide the dead one. But if the owner, knowing the vice of the bull, did not take precaution, he shall give his bull in its place.

If anyone steals a calf, he shall restore five; if he steals a sheep, the penalty shall be fourfold: if the animals are found alive in the possession of the thief, he shall restore double. It is lawful to kill a nighttime thief, not a daytime one. If anyone's cattle graze down another's crops, the owner of the cattle shall make restitution for the damage. If a deposit is lost, the one with whom it was deposited shall swear that he acted with no deceit: a thief, if found, shall pay double. Livestock entrusted and taken by a wild beast shall not be restored. If anyone corrupts a virgin not yet betrothed, he shall provide a dowry for the girl, and so take her as wife. If the girl's father refuses the marriage, the ravisher shall still give the dowry. If anyone lies with an animal, he shall be put to death. Whoever sacrifices to idols shall perish.

The widow and orphan are not to be oppressed: the poor debtor is not to be pressed hard, nor is interest to be demanded of him: the garment of the poor is not to be taken as a pledge: the ruler of the people is not to be reviled: all firstborn are to be offered to the Lord: flesh taken by a wild beast is not to be eaten: conspiracies for false testimony, or for any malice, are not to be made. You shall not pass by the straying animal of an enemy, but shall bring it back. If you find the animal of an enemy fallen under its burden, you shall be bound to help lift it up. You shall not kill the innocent and the just. You shall not justify the wicked for the sake of gifts.

Gifts are not to be accepted: the stranger is to be treated kindly: six days work is to be done, on the sabbath rest is to be kept: the fruits of the seventh year are not to be harvested, but left for the poor and needy.

These, roughly, were the words of God which Moses reported to the people, and he set up an altar of twelve stones under the mountain. And again he went up the mountain, on which the Lord stood, taking with him Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders. But these, not being able to look upon the Lord, saw nevertheless the place where the Lord stood: whose wondrous form and exceptional brightness are related. Moses, however, being called by the Lord, entered the inner cloud which had stood about the Lord, and is said to have been there forty days and as many nights. During that time he was instructed in the words of God concerning the building of the tabernacle and the ark, and the rite of sacrificing: which, because they seemed very lengthy, I did not think should be inserted into so condensed a work as this. But while Moses lingered on so long, since he spent forty days with the Lord, the people, having given up hope of his return, compelled Aaron to make images.

Then, from molten metals, the head of a calf came forth; and when the people, forgetful of the Lord, had offered sacrifices to it, and had given themselves over to wine and to the belly, God, looking upon these things with just indignation, would have destroyed the wicked people, had He not been entreated by Moses. But Moses, returning, when he had brought down two tablets of stone written by the hand of the Lord, and had discovered the people given over to luxury and sacrilege, broke the tablets, judging the nation unworthy that the law of the Lord should be delivered to it. But after rebuking many, he gathered the Levites to himself, and commanded them to cut down the people with drawn swords; by which onslaught twenty-three thousand men are said to have perished. Then Moses set up the tabernacle outside the camp: and as often as he entered it, a pillar of cloud was seen standing before the doors, and the Lord spoke to Moses face to face.

But when Moses asked to see the Lord in His own majesty, the answer was that the form of God could not be perceived by mortal eyes; yet it was granted to see His hinder parts; and the tablets which Moses had earlier broken were remade; but in this converse with God, Moses is said to have spent forty days with the Lord. And when he descended from the mountain bearing the tablets, his face shone with such brightness that the people could not look upon him, but when he was about to deliver the commands of God, he covered his face with a veil, and so spoke to the people the words of the Lord. In this place the building of the tabernacle and its interior is related; and when this was completed, a cloud descended from above, and so overshadowed the tabernacle that it excluded even Moses himself from entering. These things are contained, roughly, in the two books, Genesis and Exodus.

Then follows the book of Leviticus, in which the precepts of sacrificing are handed down; commands are also added to the law given above, all full of priestly institutions: which, if anyone wishes to learn, he will grasp more fully from that source; for we, keeping to the scope of the work undertaken, follow only the history. So the tribe of Levi being set apart for the priesthood, the remaining tribes were numbered, and found to be six hundred and three thousand four hundred men. So then, while the people were using manna as food, as we related above, ungrateful, as always, for so many and such great benefits of God, they longed for the cheap fare to which they had grown accustomed in Egypt. Then the Lord brought an immense abundance of quails into the camp; and when they eagerly seized upon them, they perished as soon as the meat touched their lips: and there was a great disaster in the camp that day, so that twenty-three thousand men are said to have perished.

Thus the people were punished with the very food they had desired. Thence the host advanced, and came to Paran: and Moses, instructed by the Lord that the neighboring land was the one whose possession the Lord had promised them, sent spies into it; it was reported back that the region was rich in every abundance, but that the peoples were strong, and their towns fortified with immense walls. When this was learned by the people, great fear seized the minds of all, and matters came to such a pass that, spurning the authority of Moses, they prepared to appoint a leader for themselves, under whose guidance they would return to Egypt.

Then Joshua and Caleb, who had been among the spies of the land, with torn garments and weeping, implored the people not to believe the spies who brought back fearful reports: that they too had been with them, and had found nothing to fear in that land: that they ought to trust in the promises of God: that the enemies would be prey rather than a cause of destruction. But the untamed people, wickedly resisting sound counsel, rushed toward their own ruin: moved by these things, the Lord exposed part of the people to be cut down by the enemy, and the spies were slain, to the terror of the multitude.

There followed the rebellion of those who, under the leadership of Dathan and Abiram, attempted to rise up against Moses and Aaron, but the earth swallowed them alive in its gaping mouth. Not long after, a sedition arose of the whole people against Moses and Aaron, so far that they broke into the tabernacle (which it was unlawful for any but the priests to enter): then indeed death rushed upon them in droves, and all would have perished in a moment, had not the Lord, appeased by the prayers of Moses, averted the disaster; yet the number of those who perished was seven hundred and fourteen thousand. Not long after, on account of scarcity of water, as had already happened several times, a sedition of the people arose. Then Moses, instructed by the Lord to strike the rock with his staff (a familiar experience for him, since he had already done this before), struck the rock once and again, and thus water flowed forth.

In this matter, indeed, Moses is recorded as having been rebuked by the Lord, because through lack of trust he did not bring forth the water except with a repeated blow; and indeed, because of this sin, he did not enter the promised land, as I shall show below. So Moses, advancing from that place, when he prepared to lead the host past Edom, sent envoys to the king to ask leave to pass through, thinking that war should be avoided for the sake of the bond of blood: for that nation was the offspring of Esau; but the king, spurning the suppliants, refused passage, and prepared to contend by arms. Then Moses turned his march toward Mount Hor, refraining from the forbidden way, lest he give any occasion for war among kinsmen; in that same course, however, he destroyed the king of the nation of the Canaanites. He also struck down Sihon, king of the Amorites, and took possession of all their towns.

He also overcame Og and Balak, kings, and pitched camp beyond the Jordan not far from Jericho. Then war was waged against the Midianites, and they were conquered and subdued. Moses died, having led the people for forty years in the desert. Now the Hebrews are said to have remained in the wilderness for so long a time for this reason, until all who had not believed the words of God should perish: for except for Joshua and Caleb, no one over twenty years of age who had set out from Egypt crossed the Jordan. As for Moses himself, that he only saw the promised land and did not enter it is ascribed to his sin: because at that time when he was commanded to strike the rock and bring forth water, after so many proofs of his own power, he doubted. He died at the age of one hundred and twenty years; of the place of his burial little is known.

When Moses died, the supreme direction of affairs rested with Jesus the son of Nave: for Moses had appointed him as his successor, a man most like himself in virtues. At the beginning of his assumed command, having sent messengers through the camp, he informed the people that they should prepare grain, and announced that the march would begin on the third day following. But the very mighty river Jordan barred their crossing, since there was neither a sufficient supply of boats for the occasion, nor could the river be forded, as it was then flowing at full channel. Therefore he ordered the ark to be carried forward by the priests, and them to take their stand against the current of the river; when this was done, the Jordan is recorded to have been cut apart, and thus the forces were led across on dry ground.

In these regions there was a town called Jericho, fortified with very strong walls, not easy either to storm or to besiege; but Jesus, relying on the Lord, not on arms or strength, having advanced against the city, ordered the ark of God to be carried around the walls, with the priests going before the ark and sounding the trumpet: and when the ark had been carried around seven times, the walls and towers collapsed, and the town was plundered and burned. Then Jesus is recorded to have given thanks to the Lord [lacuna] Thence the army was led against Gai: and, an ambush having been placed behind the city, Jesus, feigning fear, turned his back to the enemy; and when this was seen, those who were in the town, with the gates thrown open, pressed forward as the enemy withdrew. Thus those who had been in ambush seized the empty city: and all were slain, none escaping, and the king was captured and put to the utmost punishment.

When this became known to the kings of the neighboring nations, they conspired for war, to drive the Hebrews out by arms. But the Gibeonites, a strong people from a wealthy city, gave themselves up to the Hebrews of their own accord, promising to do what was commanded; and they were received into good faith, on condition that they should, as ordered, bring in wood and water. But their surrender had stirred up the anger of the kings of the neighboring cities. And so, having brought up their forces, they surrounded their town, called Gibeon, with a siege. Therefore the townspeople, being in dire straits, sent messengers to Jesus, that he should come to the aid of the besieged. So he, having hastened his march, came upon them unawares, and many thousands of the enemy were slain to the point of annihilation. When the day fell short for the slaughter, and night seemed likely to afford protection to the defeated, the Hebrew leader, by merit of his faith, turned back the night: the day persisted.

Thus there was no escape for the enemy; five kings were captured and slain; by the same onslaught the neighboring cities also were added to the dominion, and their kings were destroyed. But since it was not our purpose to pursue all these things in order, while we aim at brevity, we have taken care only to note this: that twenty-nine kingdoms were subjected to the rule of the Hebrews, whose land was distributed man by man among eleven tribes. For to the Levites, taken up into the priesthood, no portion was given, that they might serve God the more freely. Indeed I would not pass over this example in silence, and I would gladly urge it upon the ministers of the churches to be read; for they seem to me not only forgetful of this precept, but even ignorant of it: so great a desire of possessing has crept upon their minds in this age, like a wasting disease.

They gape after possessions, they cultivate estates, they brood over gold, they buy and sell, they strive after gain in every way: but if any seem of better resolve, neither possessing nor engaging in trade (which is far more shameful), they sit and wait for gifts, and hold the whole honor of their life corrupted by hire, while they display their holiness as though for sale. But I have digressed further than I wished, while I feel disgust and weariness at the times we live in: I return to what I had begun. Therefore, as I said above, the captured land having been divided among the tribes, the Hebrews enjoyed the greatest peace, the neighboring peoples being terrified by war, none daring to test in arms men made renowned by so many victories.

In this same period Jesus died, at the age of one hundred and ten years; but concerning the time of his rule there is little certainty: yet the common opinion is that he presided over the Hebrews for twenty-seven years; and if this is so, from the beginning of the world to his death there are 3,883 years.

When Jesus died the people had no leader. But since war had to be waged against the Canaanites, Judah was taken as leader of the war. Under his leadership affairs went prosperously: there was the deepest peace at home and abroad: the people held sway over nations either subdued or received by surrender. Then, as always happens in prosperity, forgetful of morals and discipline, they began to take wives from among the conquered, and gradually to draw in foreign customs, and soon began to sacrifice to idols with profane rite: so entirely ruinous is all association with foreigners. God, foreseeing this long beforehand, had instructed the Hebrews with a salutary response, that they should give the conquered nations over to annihilation; but the people, eager to dominate, preferred to rule over the conquered even at the cost of ruin.

Therefore, when, having forsaken God, they worshipped idols, being deprived of divine aid they were conquered and subdued by the king of Mesopotamia, and paid the penalty of captivity for eight years, until, under the leadership of Othoniel, they were restored to freedom and held the reins of affairs for fifty years. And again, corrupted by the evil of long peace, they offered sacrifice to idols. Soon punishment was at hand for the sinners: for having been overcome by Eglon, king of the Moabites, they served for eighteen years, until, at God's prompting, Ehud slew the enemy king by treachery, and, having gathered a hastily assembled army, vindicated liberty by arms. He presided over the Hebrews in peace for eighty years. Shamgar succeeded him; and he, having engaged against the Philistines, fought a battle with successful outcome.

And again the Hebrews, following idols, were subjugated by Jabin, king of the Canaanites, who exercised a most grievous dominion over them for twenty years, until Deborah, a woman, restored their former condition: so utterly was there no hope in their leaders, that they had to be defended by a woman's help; although this was set forth beforehand as a type of the Church, by whose help captivity is driven away. Under this leader, or judge, the Hebrews were for forty years. And again, for their sins, they were handed over to the Midianites, and held under harsh dominion; and afflicted by the evil of servitude they implored divine aid. Thus always in prosperity, forgetful of heavenly benefits, they made supplication to idols; in adversity, to God.

Whence, when I am accustomed to reflect in my mind that a people bound by so many benefits of God, restrained by so many disasters when they sinned, having experienced both the mercy and the severity of God, was in no way amended; and though it always received pardon for its error, it always sinned again after pardon; nothing can seem strange, that Christ was not received by them, since even from the very beginning they are so often found rebellious against the Lord: and it is more remarkable that, though they always sinned, God's clemency was never lacking to them whenever they implored it.

Therefore, when, as we related above, the Midianites held dominion over them, they turned to the Lord, begging for his accustomed mercy, and obtained it. There was among the Hebrews a certain man named Gideon, a just man, dear and acceptable to the Lord; to him, as he was returning home from the field of harvest, an angel stood by: "The Lord," he said, "is with you, mighty in strength." But he, with a humble voice, lamented that the Lord was not with him: since he wept as he recalled that captivity oppressed the people, and the mighty deeds of the Lord who had led them out of the land of Egypt. Then the angel said: "Go in this spirit in which you have spoken, and rescue the people from captivity." He indeed refused, saying that he could not, with the weakened strength of his people, undertake so great a burden, since he himself was the least; the angel persisted against him, that he should not doubt that what the Lord spoke could be done.

Therefore, having completed the sacrifice, and having torn down the altar which the Midianites had consecrated to the idol Baal, he set out to his people, and pitched camp against the camp of the enemy. But the people of Amalek had also joined themselves to the Midianites; while Gideon had prepared an army of no more than thirty-two thousand. But before he engaged, God spoke to him, saying that this multitude which he wished to lead into battle was too great: that the Hebrews, according to their usual faithlessness, would attribute the outcome of the battle not to God, but to their own strength: therefore he should give those willing the power to depart; and when this was made known to the people, twenty-two thousand withdrew from the camp. But of the ten thousand who remained, warned by the Lord, he kept no more than three hundred: the rest he dismissed from arms.

So, entering the enemy camp at the middle of the night, having ordered all to sound the trumpet, he cast great terror; nor did anyone have courage to resist: they scattered in shameful flight, wherever each man could; but, the Hebrews meeting them on every side, they fell as they fled in every direction; Gideon, pursuing the kings beyond the Jordan, captured and put them to death. In that battle a hundred and twenty thousand of the enemy are recorded to have been slain, and fifteen thousand captured. Then, by the consent of all, it was offered to Gideon that he should be prince of the people: this he refused, and preferred to live by common right with his fellow citizens rather than rule over them.

Therefore, the captivity which had held the people for seven years having been driven off, there was peace for forty years. But when Gideon died, his son Abimelech, born of a concubine, having slain his brothers, with the worst men consenting and especially with the leading men of the Shechemites lending him their support, seized the kingdom: and he, harassed by civil discords, when he was pressing his own people in war, undertook to storm a certain tower into which they had fled for refuge after losing their town, and, while advancing too carelessly, was struck by a stone thrown by a woman and perished, having held rule for three years. Tola succeeded him, who held the kingdom for twenty-two years. After him came Jair, who, having likewise held the principate for twenty-two years, then the people, having forsaken the Lord, gave themselves over to idols: and on account of this the Israelites were subdued by the Philistines and the Ammonites, and were under their rule for eighteen years.

At this time, when they invoked the Lord, a divine answer was given, namely: that they should rather invoke their idols: that he would no longer show mercy to the ungrateful. But they, weeping, confessed their guilt, and prayed for pardon; and, having cast away their idols and imploring God, they obtained the mercy that had been refused. Therefore, under the leadership of Jephthah, they gathered in great numbers to vindicate their liberty by arms; first sending envoys to Ammon's king, that he should be content with his own borders and abstain from war. But he, not refusing battle, drew up his line. Then Jephthah, before the signal for battle was given, is said to have vowed that, if he fought successfully, whoever should first meet him on his return should be given to God as a sacrifice. Thus, the enemy having been defeated, as he returned home, his daughter came to meet him, who had come forth joyfully with timbrels and dances to receive her father as victor.

Then Jephthah, stricken, having torn his garments in grief, discloses to his daughter the necessity of his vow. But she, with no womanly weakness, not refusing to die, asked only a space of two months of life, that she might first see her companions: which having been done, she returned of her own accord to her father, and paid the vow to the Lord. Jephthah held the principate for six years. Ibzan succeeded him, and, having completed his rule in tranquil circumstances, died in the seventh year: and after him Elon the Zebulonite for ten years, and likewise Abdon for eight years held the reins of affairs, and in a time of peace produced nothing which history would relate.

Again the Israelites, turned to idols, deprived of divine protection, subjected to the Philistines, paid the penalty of their faithlessness through forty years of captivity. In that time Samson is recorded to have been born. His mother, long barren, saw an angel; and it was said to her: that she should abstain from wine and strong drink and unclean things: that she would bear a boy who would be the vindicator of liberty and the avenger of the enemy. Thus the woman, having given birth to a boy, named him Samson. He, with unshorn head, is recorded to have been of marvelous strength: so much so that he tore apart with his hand a lion that met him on the road.

He had a wife from among the Philistines; and when, in her husband's absence, she had entered into marriage with another, he, in grief for the loss of his wife, contrived ruin for that people (relying on the Lord and on his strength, he openly afflicted the victors with disaster): for having caught three hundred foxes, he tied burning torches to their tails, and sent them into the fields of the enemy: and then, as it happened, the harvests being ripe, the fire spread easily, and the vineyards and olive trees were burned. By this great destruction of the Philistines he seemed to have avenged the wrong of his stolen wife: at which grief the Philistines, moved, consumed with fire the woman who was the cause of so great an evil, together with her house and her father. But Samson, thinking himself insufficiently avenged, did not cease to harass the profane nation with every kind of trouble. Then the Jews, compelled, handed him over bound to the Philistines.

But once handed over, having burst his bonds, and having seized the jawbone of an ass, which chance offered as a weapon, he laid low a thousand of the enemy. But as the heat grew more intense and he was afflicted with thirst, having called upon the Lord, water flowed from the bone which he held in his hand.

At that time Samson was in command over the Hebrews, the foreigners having been subdued by the valor of one man. Therefore, plotting against his life, and not daring to attempt him openly, they corrupted with money his wife, whom he had afterwards taken, that she might betray the man's strength. She, assailing him with womanly blandishments, at length, after he had long evaded her and hesitated much, prevailed upon him to disclose that his strength lay in the hair of his head. Soon, lying in wait for him as he slept, she cut off his hair, and thus delivered him to the foreigners: for often before, when he had been delivered up, they had not been able to seize him. Then they, having put out his eyes, cast him bound in fetters into prison. But in the course of time his shorn hair began to grow, and with it his strength began to return: and now Samson, conscious of his recovered vigor, was only awaiting the time for just vengeance.

It was the custom of the foreigners, when they kept their festal days, to bring forth Samson as it were in a public show, insulting him as a captive. So on a certain day, when they had given a public banquet in honor of their idol, they ordered Samson to be brought out: now the temple, in which all the people and all the princes of the foreigners were feasting, was supported upon two columns of marvelous size. Samson, being brought forth, was stationed between the columns: then he, seizing the moment, having first invoked the Lord, cast down the columns; and the whole crowd was overwhelmed in the ruin of the house; and he himself perished along with his enemies, not unavenged, having governed the Hebrews for twenty years.

To him succeeded Simmichar, of whom Scripture has related nothing further: for I have found neither the end of his rule, nor do I find that the people were without a leader; for this reason, when there was civil war against the tribe of Benjamin, Judah was taken up as temporary leader of the war. But most of those who have written on chronology have noted one year for his rule: many have passed him over so entirely that they have placed the priest Eli directly after Samson. We shall leave this matter, as insufficiently ascertained, undecided.

During these times, as we have said, civil war had broken out: the cause of the disturbance was this. A certain Levite, traveling with his concubine, driven by the pressure of night, had turned aside into the town of Gabaa, which was inhabited by the Benjaminites. When a certain old man had kindly received him as a guest, young men from the town surrounded the guest, preparing to subject him to outrage. Rebuked much by the old man, and exhorted with difficulty, they at last, having accepted in mockery the body of his concubine as a substitute, spared the stranger; and having abused her the whole night, they returned her the next day. But she—whether from the injury of the outrage, or from shame, I cannot quite determine—breathed out her life at the sight of her husband.

Then the Levite, as testimony of the dreadful deed, sent her limbs, cut into twelve parts, through the twelve tribes, that he might the more readily stir up all to indignation at the deed: which, when it became known to all, the remaining eleven tribes conspired in war against Benjamin. Of this war Judah, as we have said, was leader: but in two battles the fighting went ill; in the third at last the Benjaminites were defeated, and slaughtered to extermination. Thus the crime of a few was punished by public ruin. These things also are contained in the Book of Judges. The Books of Kings follow.

But to me, tracing the order of years and the sequence of the times, the history seems insufficiently continuous: for, since after Samson the Judge was Semigar, and shortly afterward the history records that the people acted without judges; and Eli the priest also is related to have existed in the Books of Kingdoms: but since Scripture has nowhere disclosed how many years there were between Eli and Samson, I see that there was a certain intervening period of time, which suffers from ambiguity. For the rest, from the day of the death of Joshua up to the time when Samson died, there are numbered 419 years: and from the beginning of the world, 3303 years, although I am not unaware that others disagree with this computation of ours: but I am conscious to myself that I have set forth, not carelessly, the hidden order of the years, until I came upon these times, concerning which I confess I am in doubt. Now I shall pursue the rest.

Therefore, as I related above, the Hebrews, without any judge or leader, were conducting themselves according to their own judgment. Eli was priest: under him Samuel was born. His father was Elcana, his mother Anna. She, long barren, when she begged of God that she might conceive, is recorded to have vowed that, if a boy should be born, he would be consecrated to the Lord. Thus, having borne the boy, she delivered him to Eli the priest. Soon, when he had grown up, the Lord spoke to him, announcing wrath against Eli the priest on account of the vices of his sons, who had turned their father's priesthood into a means of gain, exacting gifts from those who sacrificed, although it is related that the father had generally rebuked them: but a milder reproof had not sufficed for discipline. Then, when the foreigners rushed into Judea, they were met in battle.

But the Hebrews, being defeated, prepared to restore the battle-line: they carried the Ark of the Lord with them into the fight, and with it came forth the sons of the priest: because he himself, being heavier with years and his eyes clouded over, had been unable to fulfill his office. But when the Ark was brought into the sight of the enemy, they, terrified by a certain majesty of the Lord's presence, were preparing to flee: then, resuming courage again, and with their minds changed not without the Lord's working, they rushed together with all their strength. The Hebrews were defeated: the Ark was captured: the sons of the priest fell. Eli, when the evil tidings were brought to him, was struck with dismay, and breathed out his life, having administered the priesthood for twenty years.

The foreigners, victorious in the second battle, brought the Ark of God, which had come into their power, into the temple of Dagon in the town of Azotus. But the image dedicated to the demon, when the Ark was brought in, fell down: and when they had restored the idol to its place, on the following night it was torn to pieces. Thence mice arose throughout the whole region, delivering many thousands of men to death by harmful bites. Driven by this evil, the Azotians, to avert the calamity, transferred the Ark of God to the Gittites; who, being afflicted with a like disaster, carried the Ark over to the town of the Ascalonites. These, having summoned the chief men of their nation, resolved to give back the Ark of the Lord to the Hebrews; so, by the judgment of the princes, augurs, and priests, it was placed upon a wagon with many gifts and sent back.

This was marvelous, that though they had yoked female cattle to the burden, and kept their calves at home, the beasts directed their course without any guide into Judea, unmoved by affection for the offspring left behind: at which miracle the princes of the foreigners followed the Ark as far as the borders of the Hebrews, paying it a reverent office. But the Jews, when they saw the Ark being brought back, rushed eagerly from the town of Bethsamis with joy to meet it, hastening, exulting, giving thanks to the Lord. Soon the Levites, whose duty this was, celebrated a sacrifice to God, and immolated the cows that had brought back the Ark. But in the town which we mentioned above, the Ark could not be kept: and so, by God's will, havoc was wrought throughout the whole city. The Ark was transferred to the town of Cariathiarim, and there it remained for twenty years.

At that time Samuel the priest was in command over the Hebrews; the people, war having ceased, spent their time in ease; then the peace was disturbed by an incursion of the foreigners. While all trembled on account of the consciousness of sin, Samuel, having first offered a sacrifice, trusting in the Lord, led forth his men into battle; and at the first onset the enemy were routed, and the victory remained with the Hebrews. But when the fear of the enemy had been removed, in times of prosperity and tranquility, with counsels corrupted (as is the way of the crowd, to whom the present is loathsome, and the unaccustomed a matter of desire), the people began to desire the name of king, always hateful to almost all free nations, and plainly, not without an example of madness, preferred to exchange liberty for servitude. Therefore they gathered frequently around Samuel, that, since he himself had now grown old, he might appoint them a king.

But he, calmly, with wholesome speech, sought to turn the people away from their mad desire: he set forth the domination and proud commands of kings: he extolled liberty, he denounced servitude: finally he announced to them divine wrath, since men corrupted in mind, having God as their king, were demanding for themselves a king from among men. When these and other such things had been said in vain, since the people persisted in their resolve, he consulted the Lord: who, moved by the folly of the insane nation, answered that nothing was to be denied to those who asked against themselves.

Therefore Saul, having first been anointed by Samuel with the sacerdotal ointment, was made king. He was of the tribe of Benjamin, born of his father Cis, of modest disposition, of excellent form; so that the dignity of his body fittingly matched the dignity of the kingship. But at the beginning of his reign a considerable part of the people had fallen away from him, refusing to obey his command, and had joined themselves to the Ammonites. But Saul actively avenged this: the enemy were defeated, and pardon was granted to the Hebrews; then Saul is recorded to have been anointed a second time by Samuel. Thence a fierce war arose from an incursion of the foreigners.

Saul had appointed a place for the army to gather at Galgala: and when he had waited for Samuel for seven days, that a sacrifice might be made to the Lord; the latter delaying, and the people beginning to scatter, the king, by an unlawful presumption, offered the burnt offering in the priest's stead, and, much rebuked by Samuel, confessed his sin with a late repentance.

Therefore, from the king's sin, fear had pervaded the whole army: the enemy's camp, situated not far off, showed present danger: nor had anyone the spirit to go out to battle: most had sought tears and hiding places; for besides the weakness of spirit of those who thought the Lord estranged from them because of the king's offense, the army was in the greatest want of iron tools; so much so that, besides Saul and his son Jonathan, no one is recorded to have had a sword or a spear: for the foreigners, victorious in the previous war, had taken from the Hebrews the use of such things, nor had anyone the power of fashioning a weapon of war or a farming implement. Therefore Jonathan, by a bold plan, with only his armor-bearer as companion, entered the enemy's camp, and having slain about twenty of the enemy, had struck the whole army with terror.

Then indeed, by the will of God turned to flight, they neither obeyed commands nor kept ranks, having all their safety in their feet: which when Saul perceived, having quickly led out his own men, he pursued the fleeing enemy, and gained the victory. On that day the king is recorded to have proclaimed that no one should take food until the enemy were finished off: but Jonathan, unaware of his prohibition, having found a honeycomb, tasted the honey with the tip of his spear. But when it became known to the king, out of fear of the Lord's wrath, he ordered his son to be put to death: but he was rescued from death by the help of the people. At that time Samuel, warned by the Lord, went to the king, announcing the words of the Lord, that he should make war upon the nation of Amalec, which long ago had forbidden the Hebrews passage as they came out of Egypt; with the added prohibition, that he should covet nothing from the spoils of the vanquished.

Thus the army was led into the borders of the enemy, the king was captured, the nation subdued. Saul, overcome by the greatness of the spoil, forgetful of the divine command, ordered the captured things to be preserved and carried off. Offended by this deed, the Lord addressed Samuel: that He repented of having made Saul king.

The priest reports the word to the king. Soon, warned by the Lord, he anoints David with the royal unction, still a small boy, living under his father, a shepherd of sheep, accustomed often to play the harp: for which reason he was afterward taken up by Saul, and was reckoned among the royal attendants. At that time, when the foreigners and the Hebrews were burning in war, when the battle-lines had been drawn up facing each other, a certain Goliath from among the foreigners, a man of marvelous size and strength, stepping beyond the ranks of his own men, hurled fierce words of reproach against the enemy, provoking single combat. Then the king promised great rewards and marriage with his daughter, if anyone should bring back the spoils of the challenger: but no one from so great a host dared to attack him.

Then David, still a boy, offered himself for the fight: and having cast aside the arms with which his weak age was burdened, taking only a staff and five stones, he went forth into battle: and at the first blow, with a stone cast from a sling, he struck down the foreigner: he took off the head and spoils of the vanquished; the sword he afterward placed in the temple; and all the foreigners, turned to flight, yielded the victory. But when they had returned from battle, the great favor surrounding David had kindled the king's envy; and fearing, out of envy and the risk of ruin, to kill one so dear to all, he resolved instead, under pretense of honor, to expose him to dangers. And first he had made him a tribune, that he might have charge of military matters; then, though he had promised him his daughter, he broke his word, and gave her to another.

Soon the king's younger daughter, named Melchol, began to burn with love for David; therefore he proposed such a condition for her marriage: that if David should bring back a hundred foreskins of the enemy, the royal virgin should be given to him in marriage: for he hoped that the young man, daring dangerous things, would easily perish. But it turned out far otherwise than he had reckoned: for, as had been proposed, David promptly brought back a hundred foreskins from the foreigners; and thus received the king's daughter in marriage.

The king's hatred of him grew day by day, envy goading it on: for the wicked always persecute the good; and so he commanded his servants and his son Jonathan to lay snares for his life. But Jonathan had been dear and pleasing to David from the very beginning; and so the king, rebuked by his son, checked his bloody purpose. But the wicked are not long good; for when Saul was afflicted by a spirit of error, and David attended him, soothing his sufferings with the harp, he attempted to strike him with a spear, had he not swiftly avoided the deadly blow. From then on he no longer prepared his death secretly, but openly; nor did David any longer trust himself to the king. And fleeing first, he betook himself to Samuel; thence to Abimelech, and finally he fled to the king of Moab; soon, warned by the prophet Gad, he returned to the land of Judah, and there again faced peril of his life.

At that time Saul slew Abimelech the priest, because he had received David; and since none of the king's servants dared lay hands upon the priest, Doeg the Syrian carried out the bloody deed. After this David sought the desert. There too Saul pursued him; but he was laboring in vain to destroy the one whom the Lord was protecting. There was in the desert a cave opening into a vast recess, into whose inner parts David had cast himself. Saul, unaware, had come up to the first entrance of the cave to refresh his body, and there, overcome by sleep, was resting; when David perceived this, though all urged him to seize the opportunity, he refrained from the king's destruction: yet he took away his cloak. Soon, going out, he addressed the king from a safe distance behind him, recounting his own kindnesses toward him.

How he had often exposed his head to danger for his kingdom, and how, most recently, when the king had been delivered into his hand by the Lord, he had refused to kill him. To this Saul confessed his fault, begged pardon, shed tears, extolled David's piety, accused his own malice, calling him king and son. So much was that fierce spirit changed, that one would believe he would never again dare anything against his son-in-law. But David, who had more deeply observed and known the man's wicked disposition, thinking nothing should be trusted to the king, kept himself within the wilderness. Saul, out of his mind, since he had no power to seize his son-in-law, gave his daughter Michal, who as we related above had been married to David, in marriage to a certain Phalti.

David fled to the Philistines. At that time Samuel died. When the Philistines were waging war upon him, Saul consulted the Lord, and no answer at all was given him. Then through a woman, whose inward parts a spirit of error had filled, he consulted Samuel, called up from the dead. It was told him by Samuel that on the following day he, along with his son, would fall defeated by the Philistines in battle. So the Philistines, having pitched camp on hostile ground, drew up their battle line the next day, David nevertheless having been sent back from the camp, since they had little trust that he would be faithful to them against his own people. But when battle was joined, the Hebrews were routed; the sons of the king fell; Saul, fallen from his horse, lest he come alive into the power of the enemy, fell upon his own sword.

Concerning the length of his reign we have found little that is certain, except that in the Acts of the Apostles he is said to have reigned forty years; although I think that both by Paul, whose preaching is there recorded, and even Samuel's years were reckoned under this king's age. Most, however, who have written on chronology have noted that he reigned thirty years; to this opinion we by no means assent; for at the time when the Ark of the Lord was carried to the town of Kiriath-jearim, Saul had not yet begun to reign: but it is recorded that the ark was taken from that town by King David, after it had remained there twenty years; therefore, since Saul reigned and died within that span, he held the kingdom for quite a short time. We are under the same obscurity about the chronology of Samuel, who is said to have been born in the time of Eli the priest and to have discharged the priesthood when already quite old.

Yet by some who have written on chronology (since sacred history has truly marked nothing of his years) he is recorded to have presided over the people for seventy years; but whence this authority was taken, I have not found. We, amid such abundance of error, following the notation of the Chronicles (because we think it derived from the Acts of the Apostles, as we mentioned above) record that Samuel and Saul together held the leadership for forty years.

Saul having perished, David, who was in the land of the Philistines, upon receiving news of his death, is recorded to have wept, a wondrous example of piety. Then he made for Hebron, a town of Judea. There again he was anointed with the royal oil and proclaimed king; but Abner, who had been Saul's master of soldiery, spurning David, made Ishbaal, his king's son, king. Then there were frequent battles between the commanders of the two kings; Abner was more often routed; yet, fleeing, he slew the brother of Joab, who commanded part of David's army; for which grief Joab afterward, when Abner had surrendered himself to King David, ordered him slain, not without the grief of the king, whose good faith he had thereby stained with blood. About this same time nearly all the elders of the Hebrews, by public consent, conferred upon him the kingdom of the whole nation; for he had reigned only in Hebron for seven years.

Thus he was anointed king a third time, being about thirty years old; he drove back the Philistines who were invading the kingdom, in successful battles. At that time he transferred the Ark of the Lord, which was in the town of Kiriath-jearim, as we related above, to Zion; and when he had it in mind to build a temple to the Lord, a divine answer was given him, that this was reserved for his Seed. He then subdued the Philistines in war, subjugated the Moabites, conquered Syria and imposed tribute upon it; he brought back an immense quantity of gold and bronze from the spoils. Then war arose against the Ammonites, from the injury of Hanun their king. When the Syrians, who had conspired into war with the Ammonites, rebelled again, David entrusted the whole conduct of affairs to Joab, the commander of the soldiery; he himself, kept from the war, remained within Jerusalem.

At that time he had knowledge, through adultery, of a certain Bathsheba, a woman of wondrous beauty. She is recorded to have been the wife of a certain man who was then in the camp. David saw to it that this man was placed in an unfavorable position of battle exposed to the enemy, and had him killed; thus he added the woman, now free from marriage but already pregnant from the adultery, to the number of his wives. Then, sharply rebuked through the prophet Nathan, though he acknowledged his fault, he did not escape the Lord's chastisement; for he lost, a few days later, the son born of that stolen union, and many execrable things happened to his house and family; at last his son Absalom raised impious arms against his father, desiring to drive him from the kingdom. Against him Joab fought in battle, though warned by the king to spare him if defeated; but he, scorning the command, avenged the parricidal attempt with the sword.

That victory is recorded to have been mournful to the king: so great was his devotion in him, that he wished even the parricidal son to be forgiven. Scarcely did this war seem extinguished, when another arose again, with a certain Sheba as leader, who had incited all the worst men to arms; but the whole uprising was swiftly checked by the death of its leader. Then David had frequent battles against the Philistines with successful outcome; and with all things subdued in war, and both foreign and domestic disturbances suppressed, he held a most flourishing kingdom in peace. Then a sudden desire seized him, to measure the strength of his realm, to number the people; so by Joab, master of the soldiery, one million three hundred thousand citizens were numbered. Soon he was troubled and repented of this deed, seeking pardon from the Lord, for having let his mind be so lifted up as to estimate the power of his kingdom rather from the multitude of his people than from divine favor.

And so an angel was sent to him, announcing a threefold punishment, and giving him the choice of one: either three years of famine, three months of flight, or three days of death; abhorring flight and famine, he chose death; and in a moment of time seventy thousand men perished. Then David, seeing the angel by whose right hand the people were being laid low, begged for mercy, offering himself alone in place of all for the punishment: he alone was worthy of destruction, since he alone had sinned. Thus the punishment of the people was turned away. David set up an altar to the Lord in the place where he had seen the angel. Then, weakened more by years and illness, he made his son Solomon, born of Bathsheba the wife of Uriah, the successor to the kingdom. He was anointed with the royal oil by Sadoc the priest, and proclaimed king while his father was still alive. David, having reigned forty years, died.

Solomon, at the beginning of his reign, surrounded the city with a wall. The Lord appeared to stand beside him in sleep, granting him the choice of asking whatever he wished. But he asked for nothing else to be given him but wisdom, esteeming all other things of little worth. So, roused from sleep, when he had stood before the sanctuary of the Lord, he gave proof of the wisdom granted him by the Lord. For two women, dwelling in one house, having given birth to boys at the same time, one of whom died on the third night thereafter; the mother of the dead child, lying in wait while the other slept, substituted her own dead child and took away the living one. Then a dispute arose between them over the boy; at last the matter was brought before the king: the resolution of the judgment was difficult between two who denied, where a witness was lacking.

Then Solomon, by the gift of divine wisdom, ordered that the child be killed and his body divided between the two disputing women; and when one of them acquiesced in the judgment, but the other preferred rather to yield the child than to have him torn apart, Solomon, conjecturing from the woman's feeling that this one was truly the mother, adjudged the child to her, not without the admiration of the bystanders: since his prudence had brought forth the hidden truth. Thus, in admiration of his wit and prudence, the kings of the neighboring nations sought friendship and covenant with him, prepared to do whatever was commanded.

Trusting in these resources, he undertook to make for the Lord a temple of immense work, and having prepared the expenses over three years, in about the fourth year of his reign he laid the first foundation, about the five hundred and eighty-eighth year from the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt: although in the third Book of Kings it is recorded to have been the four hundred and fortieth year; which by no means agrees: since, following the sequence set out above, it would have been easier for them perhaps to have noted fewer years rather than more. But I do not doubt that it is rather through the negligence of copyists, especially with so many ages having intervened, that the truth has been corrupted, than that the prophet erred: just as in this very little work of ours, I believe it will come to pass that through the carelessness of transcribers, things which have not been arranged carelessly by us will be corrupted. So Solomon completed the begun work of the temple in the twentieth year.

Then, a sacrifice having been celebrated there, and a prayer spoken by which he blessed the people and the temple, the Lord spoke to him, declaring that it would come to pass, if ever they sinned and forsook the Lord, that temple would be leveled to the ground. This we already see fulfilled long ago, and we shall soon set forth the connected order of events. Meanwhile Solomon, flourishing in wealth, the richest of all kings that ever were, and—as is ever the course of things—falling from wealth into luxury and vice, when contrary to God's prohibition he had taken wives from foreign nations, and now had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, set up for them idols according to the rite of their own nations, to which they might offer sacrifice. The Lord, turned away by these things, sharply rebuked him and announced punishment, that the greater part of the kingdom would be taken away and given to his son's servant; and so it came to pass.

For when Solomon died in the fortieth year of his reign, and his son Rehoboam, at sixteen years of age, had begun to hold his father's kingdom, part of the people, offended by him, broke away. For when they had asked that the tribute be lightened for them, which Solomon had imposed most heavily; the prayers of the suppliants having been spurned, he turned away the favor of the whole people; and so, by the consent of all, the kingdom was conferred upon Jeroboam. He, of middling birth, had for some time paid servitude to Solomon; but when he learned, by the answer of the prophet Ahijah, that the kingdom of the Hebrews had been announced to him, he had determined to kill him secretly; from fear of which he fled into Egypt; and there, having taken a wife of royal stock, upon at last learning of Solomon's death, he returned to his native land, and by the will of the people, as we related above, took up the kingdom.

Yet with Rehoboam there remained two tribes, Judah and Benjamin; from these he raised an army of about three hundred thousand. And when the battle lines were advancing, the people were warned by the word of God to abstain from battle: that Jeroboam had received the kingdom by his own will. So, the king's command being scorned, the army dispersed, and Jeroboam's rule prevailed; but since Rehoboam held Jerusalem, where the people had been accustomed to sacrifice to the Lord at the temple built by Solomon, Jeroboam, fearing lest religion should turn the people away from him, resolved to occupy their minds with superstition. And so he set up a golden calf at Bethel, another at Dan, to which the people might sacrifice; and he appointed priests from the common people, passing over the tribe of Levi. This outrage, hateful to the Lord, was followed by his censure. Then there were frequent battles between the two kings; they held their kingdoms with doubtful outcome. Rehoboam, having completed the seventeenth year of his reign, died.

In his place his son Abiu held the kingdom of Jerusalem for six years; although in the Chronicles he is reported to have reigned three years. To him succeeded his son Asa, about the fifth from David, being indeed his great-great-grandson. He was a religious worshipper of the Lord: for having destroyed the altars and groves of the idols, he removed the traces of his father's faithlessness, and made a treaty with the king of Syria: with his aid he inflicted great slaughter upon the kingdom of Hieroboam, which was then held by his son, and, the enemy being often defeated, he brought back spoil from victory. After the forty-first year he died, ailing in his feet. To him a threefold sin is ascribed: one, that he trusted too much in the alliance of the king of Syria; another, that he cast into chains the prophet of the Lord who rebuked him for this very thing; the third, that in the pain of his feet he hoped for remedy not from the Lord but from physicians.

But at the beginning of his reign, Hieroboam, king of the ten tribes, died; he left the kingdom to his son Nadab. He, by evil deeds, and being hateful to the Lord both by his own merits and those of his father, held the kingdom no more than two years, and his offspring were deprived of rule, unworthy of it. Baasa, son of Achias, succeeded him, likewise most estranged from the Lord; and he died in the twenty-sixth year of his reign. The kingdom passed to his son Elam, and was not held beyond two years; for Zambri, captain of the horsemen, killed him while feasting, and seized the kingdom—a man equally impious toward the Lord and toward men. From him part of the people seceded; the royal name was conferred on a certain Thamni, but Zambri reigned seven years before him and twelve years together with him. But in the part belonging to the tribe of Judah, upon the death of Asa, his son Josaphat began to reign, a man deservedly renowned for religious virtues.

He had peace with Jambri; he died, however, when he had reigned twenty-five years.

In the time of this reign, Achab, son of Jambri, was king of the ten tribes, more impious toward the Lord than all others: for having taken in marriage Jezabel, daughter of Basa, king of Sidon, he set up an altar and groves to the idol Baal, and put to death the prophets of the Lord: at which time the prophet Elias shut up heaven by prayer, so that it might not give rain to the earth; and he announced this to the king, that the impious man might know himself to be the cause of the evil. Therefore, the waters of heaven being suspended, when all places, scorched by the heat of the sun, gave neither food to men nor fodder to cattle, the prophet had shut himself within the danger of famine. At that time, having sought the wilderness, he lived by the ravens ministering food to him; the nearby stream gave him water, until it dried up.

Then, being warned by the Lord, he went to the town of Sarepta: he turned aside to a widow woman; and when, being hungry, he asked food of her, she pleaded that she had nothing but a handful of meal and a little oil: which, once consumed, she and her children would await death. But when Elias promised, by the words of God, that neither would the jar be diminished of meal, nor the vessel of oil; the woman, not hesitating to believe the prophet asking this of her, obtained the fulfillment of the promise; since by divine increase it grew back as much as was daily taken away. At the same time Elias restored to life the dead son of this same widow.

Then, by command of the Lord, he went to the king, and, having reproached him for his sacrilege, demanded that all the people be gathered to him: and when they had speedily assembled, the priests of the idols and groves, about four hundred and fifty, being summoned, a dispute arose among them: Elias proclaiming the Lord, they asserting their own superstitions; at last it was agreed that a trial be made, that whichever sacrificed victim fire sent from heaven should consume, that religion should be held valid which had shown forth such power. So the priests, having killed a calf, began to invoke the idol Baal: and their invocations being spent in vain, they tacitly confessed the weakness of their lord. Then indeed Elias, mocking them, said: Perhaps he is asleep: cry out more loudly, that he may awake from the sleep in which he is held. Indeed the wretched men, trembling, muttered, and yet waited to see what Elias would do.

But he placed the slain calf upon the altar, having first filled the sanctuary with water: and having invoked the Lord, while all were watching, fire descended from heaven and consumed the water together with the victim. Then indeed the people, prostrate on the ground, confessed the Lord and cursed the idols: at last, by the command of Elias, the profane priests were seized, led to the torrent, and put to death. As the king returned from there, the prophet accompanied him: but when Jezabel, the king's wife, prepared danger for his life, he withdrew to more remote places. There the Lord spoke to him, declaring that there were still seven thousand men who had not given themselves to idols: this was a marvel to Elias, who had believed that he alone was free from sacrilege.

At that time Achab, king of Samaria, coveted the vineyard of Naboth, which adjoined his own; and when he refused to sell it to him, he was killed by the deceits of Jezabel: thus Achab gained possession of the vineyard, though it is reported that he grieved over the death of Naboth. Soon, being rebuked by Elias with the word of the Lord, and acknowledging his crime, he is said to have put on sackcloth and done penance, by which act he averted the impending punishment. For the king of Syria, with a great army, having enlisted thirty-two kings into the alliance of war, entered the borders of Samaria, and began, together with the king, to besiege the city. Then, the affairs of the besieged being straitened, he offers terms of war: that if they handed over the gold, silver, and women, he would spare their lives; but it seemed better to suffer the worst than such unjust terms.

And when the safety of all was already despaired of, a prophet sent by the Lord came to the king: he urges him to go out to battle, and, as the king hesitated, strengthens him with many assurances: thus a sortie being made, the enemies were routed and abundant spoil was found. But after a year, his forces restored, the Syrian returned into Samaria, desiring to avenge the defeat he had suffered, and was again defeated; in that battle a hundred twenty thousand Syrians perished: pardon was granted to the king: the kingdom and his former estate were granted to him. Then Achab was rebuked by the prophet with the words of God, for having abused the divine gift by sparing the enemy delivered into his hand.

So the Syrian, after three years, made war upon the Hebrews: against him Achab went down to battle at the urging of false prophets, having despised the prophet Michaeas and cast him into chains, because he had foretold that the battle would be fatal to him; thus in that battle Achab was slain, leaving the kingdom to his son Ochozias.

He, being sick in body, when he had sent from among his servants those who should consult the idol concerning his health; Elias, warned by God, met them; and having rebuked them, bids them announce to the king that his death would follow.

Then the king orders him to be seized and brought to him: but those who were sent were consumed by fire from heaven. The king, as the prophet had foretold, died: his brother Joram succeeded him, and he held the rule for twelve years. But in the part of the two tribes, upon the death of King Josaphat, his son Joram held the kingdom for eighteen years. He had as wife the daughter of Achab; nearer to his father-in-law than to his father. After him his son Ochozias obtained the kingdom: in his reign Elias is reported to have been translated.

At the same time Elisaeus, his disciple, appeared powerful in many signs, all of which are better known than to need our pen: by him the widow's son was raised, and a Syrian was cleansed of leprosy, and in a time of famine an abundance of all things was brought in by the flight of the enemy, and water was supplied for the use of three armies, and from a little oil, by immoderate increase, a woman's debt was paid and a sufficient livelihood was given to her. In these times, as we have said, Ochozias was king of the two tribes; and Joram, as we related above, ruled over the ten: and between them a treaty was struck; for they warred together against the Syrians with joined forces, and likewise went out together to battle against Jehu, who had been anointed king of the ten tribes by a prophet, and perished together in that same battle.

But Jehu held the kingdom of Joram. Ochozias having been set as king in Judea, who reigned one year, his mother Gotholia seized the rule, the kingdom being taken from her grandson, still at that time a small boy, whose name was Joas: but the rule, snatched from him by his grandmother, was, after about eight years, restored to him by the priest and the people, the grandmother being driven out. He at the beginning of his reign was most observant of divine worship, and adorned the temple at great expense: afterward, corrupted by the flattery of the princes, and worshipped by them, he incurred the wrath of God. For Azahel, king of Syria, made war upon him; and, his affairs being brought low, he bought peace with the gold of the temple, yet did not even keep it, being killed by his own men out of resentment for the deed, in the fortieth year of his reign. His son Amassias succeeded him.

But in the part of the ten tribes, upon the death of Jehu, his son Joachas reigned, hateful to God for his evil deeds, on account of which his kingdom became a prey to the Syrians, until by the mercy of God, the enemies being driven off, they began to have their former condition. Joachas, having died, left the kingdom to his son Joas. He waged civil war against Amassias, king of the two tribes, and, having gained the victory, turned much spoil into his own kingdom; and this is reported to have happened to Amassias on account of his offense: since, having entered the territory of the Idumeans as victor, he had taken up the idols of that people. He is written to have reigned nine years, as far as I have found in the Books of Kings: but in the Paralipomenon, and also in the Chronicles, it is noted that he held the rule twenty-nine years; this indeed being persuaded by a reasoning which can easily be seen in these Books of Kings.

For Joram, king of the ten tribes, is recorded to have begun to reign in the eighth year of the reign of Amassias, and to have held the rule forty-one years: and he died at last in the fourth year of the reign of Ozias, son of Amassias; by which reasoning he made twenty-nine years for Amassias. Therefore we, following this same reckoning, since it pleases us to pursue the order of the times, have deferred to the authority of the Chronicles.

So Ozias, son of Amassias, succeeded him; for in the part of the ten tribes Joas, having died, had made room for his son Joram: and after him Zacharias his son reigned. We have not thought it necessary to note down the times of these men, and of all who presided over the part of the ten tribes at Samaria: because, aiming at brevity, we have omitted superfluous matters: and we believe that the years chiefly of that part are to be pursued for the knowledge of the times, which was afterward led into captivity and had a longer span in the kingdom. So Ozias, having obtained the kingdom of Judah, had a special care for knowing the Lord, making much use of the prophet Zacharias (Isaias also is reported to have prophesied first under him), by which merit he waged wars against his neighbors with prosperous outcomes. He also conquered the Arabs.

And now he had shaken Egypt with terror of his name, and, being lifted up by his successes and presuming upon unlawful things, he offered incense to God: which it was lawful only for the priests to do. Therefore, being rebuked by the priest Azarias, and being compelled to depart from that place, and having burned with anger, he was covered with leprosy and died: afflicted with this disease he departed life, having reigned fifty-two years. The kingdom was then given to his son Joathas: and he is reported to have been quite holy, and administered the rule prosperously: he conquered the nation of the Ammonites in war and compelled them to pay tribute: he reigned sixteen years, and his son Achaz succeeded him.

The faith of the Ninevites is reported to have been renowned around these times. That town, founded long ago by Assur, son of Sem, was the capital of the kingdom of the Assyrians, then crowded with a multitude of inhabitants, feeding one hundred twenty thousand men, and, as in a great people, abounding in vices. Moved by them, God commanded the prophet Jonas to go from Judea, and to announce to the city its destruction, just as Sodom and Gomorrah had once burned with divine fires. But the prophet, declining the ministry of that preaching, not out of obstinacy, but out of foreknowledge whereby he saw that the Lord would be appeased by the people's repentance, boarded a ship which was making for Tharsus, a far different region. But when it had proceeded into the deep, the sailors, driven by the fury of the sea, searched by lot who was the cause of the evil.

When the lot fell upon Jonas, he was cast into the deep as an expiation of the storm: and, taken up by a whale, a sea-monster, and devoured, after about three days he was cast out on the shores of the Ninevites and proclaims his charge: namely, that the city, because of the sins of the people, would perish in three days. So, without dissembling, as once at Sodom, the voice of the Prophet was heard: and immediately, by the command and example of the king, the whole people, indeed even newborn infants, abstained from food and drink: likewise cattle and animals of various kinds, driven by hunger and thirst, presented an appearance of lamenting together with the men. Thus the impending evil was averted. To Jonas complaining before God, that faith had not attended his words, it was answered: Pardon cannot be denied to those who repent.

But in Samaria a certain Selis killed Zachariah, a very impious king whom we mentioned above as having reigned, and seized the kingdom: and he himself perished by the treachery of Manes, by the example of his own deed. Manes held the empire snatched from Sellas, and left it to his son Pache: but a certain man of the same name killed this same Pache and seized the kingdom; soon, slain by Osee, he lost it by the same crime by which he had assumed the empire. This man, more impious than all the preceding kings, deserved for himself punishment and for his people perpetual captivity from God; for Salmanassar, king of the Assyrians, brought war against him, and having conquered him made him tributary.

But when he was preparing rebellion by secret counsels, and had summoned to his aid the king of the Ethiopians who then held Egypt, and Salmanassar had discovered this, he cast him into prison in perpetual chains, and destroyed the city: he led away the whole people into his own kingdom, with Assyrians placed on hostile soil as guards (from which that region was called Samaria: because in the language of the Assyrians they call guards Samaritans), of whom very many received the divine ceremonies while the rest persevered in the error of paganism. In this war Tobias was led into captivity. But in the part of the two tribes king Achaz, hateful to God on account of his impiety, when he was often pressed by the wars of his neighbors, decided to worship the gods of the nations, doubtless because by their help they had come off victorious in frequent battles: thus he ended his day in this crime of a nefarious mind, when he had been sixteen years in the kingdom.

His son Ezechias succeeded him, of a character much unlike his father's: for at the beginning of his reign, having exhorted the people and the priests to the worship of God, he discoursed at length. That, having been frequently chastised by the Lord, they had more often obtained mercy: that finally the ten tribes recently led into captivity were paying the penalties of sacrilege: that they must take diligent care lest they deserve to suffer the same.

Thus, with the minds of all turned to religion, he ordained all the Levites and priests to celebrate sacrifices according to the law: and he instituted the celebration of the Passover, which had already for a long time been omitted; and when the feast day was at hand, messengers having been sent throughout the whole land, he proclaimed a day of assembly: that if anyone had remained in Samaria after the removal of the ten tribes, they should come together for the solemn rite: thus the sacred day was spent with a most crowded assembly in public rejoicing, the lawful religion being restored by Ezechias after a long interval. Then, with equal diligence as he had cared for divine matters, he administered military affairs, crushing the Philistines in frequent battles, until Sennacherib king of the Assyrians brought war against him.

Having entered his territory with a great army, and having widely laid waste the fields, with no one resisting, he pressed the siege of the city: for Ezechias, being inferior in numbers, did not dare to join battle, but defended himself by the walls. The Assyrian king, assaulting the gates, threatened destruction, demanded surrender: he said that Ezechias trusted in God in vain: that he himself had rather taken up arms at God's nod: that the conqueror of all nations, the destroyer of Samaria, could not be escaped, unless he took counsel for himself by a timely surrender. In this state of affairs Ezechias, relying on God, consulted the prophet Isaiah, and was informed by his answer that there would be no danger from the enemy: but that divine help would not be lacking.

Not long after, Tharacas king of the Ethiopians invaded the kingdom of the Assyrians: at which news Sennacherib, turning back to defend his own possessions, raging and crying out that victory was being snatched from him as a conqueror, abandoned the war, having sent letters to Ezechias with insulting words, declaring that he would return shortly, after settling matters at home, for the destruction of Judaea. But Ezechias, unmoved by these things, is recorded to have prayed the Lord that He would not allow so great an insolence of a man to go unpunished: thus in that same night an Angel attacked the camp of the Assyrians, and gave many thousands of men to death; the terrified king fled into the city of Nineveh, and there, killed by his sons, met the end he deserved. At the same time Ezechias, sick in body, had fallen ill.

And when Isaiah had announced to him the word of the Lord, that the end of his life was near, the king is recorded to have wept, and thus he deserved to have fifteen years added to his life: which having been completed, he died in the twenty-ninth year of his reign, and left the kingdom to his son Manasses. He, degenerating much from his father, having abandoned the Lord, practiced impious cults: for which, having been delivered into the power of the Assyrians, compelled by evil he acknowledged his error, and exhorted the people that, abandoning idols, they should worship the Lord. He did nothing indeed worthy of memory: he reigned fifty-five years. Then his son Amon obtained the kingdom, and held it no more than two years: heir of his father's impiety, neglectful of the Lord, he perished, surrounded by the plots of his own men, and the empire devolved upon his son Josias.

He is recorded to have been very religious, and to have administered divine matters with the greatest care, making good use of the priest Helchias. When this man had read, in the temple, a book of the word of God written, found by the priest, in which it was contained that the Hebrew nation, on account of frequent impieties and sacrileges, was to be destroyed; by pious prayers to God and continual weeping he averted the impending disaster. When he learned that this had been granted to him through the prophetess Holda, with greater care, as one bound by divine benefits, he exercised the worship of God. Therefore he burned all the vessels consecrated to idols by the superstitions of the former kings; for profane rites had so prevailed there that they gave divine honors to the sun and moon, and even built shrines to them out of metals: which Josias reduced to dust, and he also killed the priests of the profane shrines.

But he did not spare even the tombs of the impious: which was observed to fulfill what had once been foretold by the prophet. In the eighteenth year of his reign the Passover was celebrated. After about three years, having gone out to battle against Nechao king of Egypt, who was bringing war upon the Assyrians, before the battle lines clashed with one another, he was struck by an arrow: and from that wound, having been carried back into the city, he died, having reigned fifty and twenty years.

Then his son Joachas obtained the kingdom, held it three months, destined for captivity on account of impiety: for Nechao king of Egypt led him away conquered and captive, and not long after he ended his day in chains. An annual tribute was imposed on the Jews; a king, Eliachim, was given to them at the discretion of the conqueror, who afterward, his name changed, was called Joachim. There was Joachas's brother, son of Josias, nearer in character to his brother than to his father, hateful to God for sacrilege. Therefore, while he was obeying the king of Egypt, since he paid tribute to him, Nabuchodonosor king of the Babylonians occupied the land of Judaea by arms, and possessed it as conqueror by right of war for three years: for indeed, the king of Egypt now yielding, and the boundaries of empire having been determined between them, it had been agreed that the Jews belonged to Babylon.

Thus when Joachim, having completed eleven years in the kingdom, had made way for his son of the same name, and he had provoked the anger of the king of Babylon against himself (God indeed so acting, since it had been determined that the Jewish nation should be given over to captivity and destruction), Nabuchodonosor, entering Jerusalem with his army, leveled the city and walls and temple to the ground: an immense amount of gold, and the sacred ornaments both public and private, and all the able-bodied of both male and female sex he carried off, leaving those whose weakness or age was distasteful to the conquerors. This crowd, useless for servitude, was assigned to cultivating and working the fields, lest the land be left untilled: and over them king Sedechias was set, endowed with power, granted only the empty shadow of the royal name. But Joachim held the time of his reign for three months. He, having been transferred with the people to Babylon, was cast into prison.

Released after the thirtieth year, and received into friendship by the king, and made a partaker of his table and counsels, he died not without the solace of his calamity having been relieved.

Meanwhile king Sedechias, of a crowd useless though without strength, of a faithless character and forgetful of God, who did not understand that the captivity had been brought on account of the nation's offenses, being finally deserved for the utmost evils, offended the mind of the king. Thus after nine years Nabuchodonosor brought war against him, and having compelled him to flee within the walls, besieged him for three years. At that time he consulted the prophet Jeremiah, who had already often proclaimed that captivity was hanging over the city, whether perhaps some hope remained. But he, not ignorant of the heavenly wrath, though often asked the same, answered, announcing a special punishment to the king himself. Then indeed Sedechias, roused to anger, ordered the prophet to be thrust into prison: and soon he repented of the cruel deed; but with the princes of the Jews opposing, whose custom it had already been from the beginning to oppress the good, he did not dare to release the innocent man.

At their insistence, he was let down into a pit of immense depth, and, foul with mud and filth, and hideous from the deadly stench of it, so that he might not even die a simple death. But the king, though impious, nevertheless somewhat milder than the priests, ordered the prophet to be brought out of the pit and returned to the custody of prison. Meanwhile the force of the enemy and want pressed upon the besieged: and, all things that could be eaten having been consumed, famine had grown strong. Thus, the defenders being worn out with starvation, the town was captured and burned: the king, as the prophet had said, having had his eyes put out, was carried off to Babylon: Jeremiah was, by the mercy of the enemy, released from prison.

When Nabuzardan, the king's officer, was leading him captive along with the others, an option having been given to him by that man, whether he wished to remain in his abandoned and desolate native land, or to go away with him in the highest honors, he preferred to remain in his native land. Nabuchodonosor, having led away the people, set Godolias, of the same nation, over the remainder (whom the terms of the war or the disdain of the plunderers had caused to be left by the conquerors), without any royal insignia or the name of empire: because there was no dignity in presiding over a few and calamitous people.

The times of the captivity were illustrated by the prophecies and deeds of the prophets, and especially by Daniel's outstanding perseverance in preserving the law, and by the acquittal of Susanna by divine counsel, and by the other things done by him, which we shall pursue in order. He, under king Joachim, was captured and led away to Babylon, a quite small boy: afterward, on account of the elegance of his countenance, he was taken among the royal attendants, together with Ananias, Misael, and Azarias. But when the king had ordered them to be nourished with more delicate foods, and had given this task to the eunuch Asphanes, Daniel, mindful of his ancestral traditions, lest he partake of the foods from the table of the gentile king, asked of the eunuch that they might use only legumes.

Asphanes objecting, lest an emaciation resulting from the disguised order of the king should betray him, Daniel, relying on the Lord, promises that their countenances would have greater comeliness from legumes than from the royal foods; and faith attended his words, so that their countenances were by no means comparable to those of the ones who were provided for at imperial expense. Therefore, being brought into honor and favor by the king, they were in a short time preferred, by prudence and discipline, before all those closest to the king. At the same time a certain Susanna, married to Joachim, a woman of notable beauty, being desired by two elders, when she would not consent to their shameless desires, was charged with a false crime: the same elders reporting that a young man had been caught with her in remote places, but that he had escaped the hands of the old men by youthful swiftness. Thus faith was given to the elders: by the judgment of the people Susanna is condemned.

When she was being led to punishment according to the law, Daniel, then twelve years of age, having rebuked the Jews for having condemned an innocent woman to death, demands that she be brought back to judgment, and that the case be heard again. Indeed the multitude of the Jews who were then present, thinking it not without the Lord that a boy of despised tender age had broken forth into this constancy, with favor accorded, turns back into assembly. The trial is entered upon again: to Daniel it was granted to sit among the elders. Therefore he orders the accusers to be separated: and he asks one of them under what kind of tree he had caught the adulteress. From the variety of the answer the falsehood was detected: Susanna was acquitted: the elders, who had created danger for the innocent woman, were condemned to death.

At that time Nabuchodonosor saw a dream, marvelous with the mystery of things to come, the interpretation of which, since he could not unfold it by himself, having summoned the Chaldeans to interpret it, who by magic arts and by the entrails of victims seemed to know hidden things and to foretell future things: soon, fearing lest, after the manner of men, they should conjecture from the dream not true things but things pleasing to the king, he suppressed the vision, and demanded of them that, if there were true divination in these matters, they should tell him the dream itself: then at last he would believe their interpretation, if they had first made trial of their art by declaring the dream. But they, refusing so great a burden, confessed that this was not within human power.

The king, moved because men with a false profession of divination deluded people with errors, since, bound by the present matter, they confessed they knew nothing: thus by the king's edict vengeance was taken upon them, and openly all men of this art were being killed. When this became known to Daniel, he calls for the king's chamberlain: he promises the declaration of the dream and its interpretation. The matter is reported to the king: Daniel is summoned; the mystery having already been revealed to him by the Lord, the king's vision is related, and its solution. But the matter demands that we set forth the king's dream and the prophet's interpretation and the trustworthiness of what followed. The king had seen in his sleep an image with a head of gold and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, which ended in feet partly of iron, partly of clay. But the iron and the clay could not cohere when mixed together.

At last, a stone cut without hands crushed the image: and all things having been reduced to dust, were carried away by the wind.

Therefore, according to the prophet's interpretation, the image seen bears the figure of the world: the golden head is the empire of the Chaldeans, since we have learned that it was the first and most opulent. The breast and arms of silver announce the second kingdom: for Cyrus, having conquered the Chaldeans and Medes, transferred the empire to the Persians. In the belly of bronze the third kingdom is declared to be portended; and we see this fulfilled, since Alexander claimed for Macedonia the empire wrested from the Persians. The legs of iron are understood as the fourth empire, that is, the Roman, strongest of all the kingdoms before it. But the feet, partly of iron, partly of clay, prefigure that the Roman kingdom is to be divided, so that it never comes together into one; which likewise has been fulfilled, since the Roman state is now administered not by one emperor, but by several, always disagreeing among themselves in arms or in aims.

Finally, that clay and iron are mixed together, materials that never come together, signifies the future minglings of the human race that will be at odds with one another; since it is well known that the Roman soil alone has been occupied either by foreign nations in rebellion, or, when they surrender, has always been handed over under a semblance of peace; and we see barbarian nations mingled with our armies, cities, and provinces, and especially the Jews dwelling among us, yet not passing over into our customs. And the prophet declares these to be the last times: but in the stone cut without hands, which crushed the gold, silver, iron, and clay, it is the figure of Christ.

For he, not brought forth by human condition (since he was born not of the will of man, but of God), will reduce to nothing this world in which are the kingdoms of the earth, and will establish another kingdom, incorrupt and everlasting, that is, the age to come, which is prepared for the saints: concerning which alone the faith of certain persons is still in doubt, though they ought not to disbelieve concerning things to come, when they are convinced concerning things past. Therefore Daniel, endowed with many gifts by the king, and set over Babylonia and over the whole empire, was held in the highest honors; by his recommendation Ananias, Azarias, and Misael were likewise advanced to the highest dignity and power. At nearly the same time the illustrious prophecy of Ezekiel came forth, the mystery of things to come and of the resurrection having been revealed to him: there exists a book of great work, and one to be read with care.

But in Judea, over which, as we mentioned above, Gedaliah had been set after the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews, taking it ill that a ruler not of royal stock had been given to them at the will of the victor, under a certain leader Ishmael, the instigator of a wicked conspiracy, having laid an ambush for him at a banquet, killed him. But those who had been free of the crime, wishing to avenge the deed, quickly took up arms against Ishmael; but he, knowing that ruin was threatening him, abandoning the force he had gathered, fled to the Ammonites with no more than eight companions. Then fear pervaded the whole people, lest the king of Babylon should avenge the crime of a few by the destruction of all: for besides Gedaliah they had killed many of the Chaldeans along with him. And so they took counsel to flee into Egypt.

But first they went in great numbers to Jeremiah, seeking a divine answer; and he exhorted them all in the words of God: that they should remain in their native land; if they did this, they would be protected by God's guard, and there would be no danger from the Babylonians; but if they sought Egypt, they would all perish there by sword, famine, and various kinds of death. But the people, accustomed to evil, unwilling to obey wholesome counsels and the divine command, set out into Egypt; what happened to them afterwards is passed over in silence in the sacred writings, and nothing is known to us.

In this course of time Nebuchadnezzar, elated by his successes, set up for himself a golden statue of immense size, and ordered it to be worshiped as a sacred image; and when this was done by all in eager rivalry (their minds corrupted by universal flattery), Ananias, Azarias, and Misael abstained from the profane duty, not being ignorant that this honor was owed to God alone. Therefore they were arraigned by edict of the king: and the condition of punishment set before them was a burning furnace, so that by present fear they might be compelled to worship the statue. But they preferred to be consumed by the fires rather than commit a sin. And so, bound in their garments, they were thrown into the midst of the flames.

But the flame devoured the ministers of the wicked deed, while they too readily thrust the condemned men into the fire; the fire did not touch the Hebrews (wonderful to relate, and incredible to those who did not witness it), since they were seen by onlookers walking about in the furnace, singing a psalm to God; and there appeared with them in the fire a fourth in the likeness of an angel, whom Nebuchadnezzar, gazing more closely, confessed he had seen to be the Son of God. Then the king, having no doubt that there had been a divine power present in the matter, having sent edicts through his whole kingdom, made known the miracle of the deed; confessing that honor was to be paid to God alone.

And not long after, the king, admonished first by a dream shown to him, then even by a voice sent from heaven, having laid aside his royal power, and removed from all human society, is said to have done penance, sustaining life only on plants; his kingdom being preserved for him by the will of God, until, the time being fulfilled, having at last acknowledged God, after seven years he was restored both to his kingdom and to his former state.

This man, after having conquered Zedekiah, as we said above, whom he carried captive to Babylon, is said to have reigned twenty-six years, although I have not found this written in the Sacred History: but it happened by chance that, while unrolling many things, I found this note in a little book already altered by age, without the author's name, in which the times of the kings of Babylon were contained: which I did not think should be passed over, since it agreed with the Chronicles, and its reckoning fit so well for us, that, going through the order of the kings whose times it contained, it filled up seventy years up to the first year of King Cyrus (for so many years are reported throughout the Sacred History from the captivity up to Cyrus).

After Nebuchadnezzar, his son obtained the kingdom, whom I have found in the Chronicles to have been called Evilmerodach. He, in the twelfth year of his reign, having died, made way for his younger brother, who was called Belshazzar. He, when in the fourteenth year he gave a public banquet to his princes and prefects, ordered the sacred vessels, which had been taken away by Nebuchadnezzar from the temple of Jerusalem, and which had not been put to royal use but kept stored in the treasuries, to be brought out. While with these, through the excess and licentiousness of the royal banquet, all persons of both male and female sex indiscriminately, his wives and concubines, were making use of them, suddenly the king perceives fingers writing on the wall: and letters could be seen drawn in a line; but no one was found who could read what was written.

Then the king, terrified, summons the magi and Chaldeans: who, muttering and answering nothing, the queen reminds the king: that there was a certain Hebrew, Daniel by name, who once had revealed to Nebuchadnezzar the dream of a hidden mystery, and who, even then, on account of his illustrious wisdom, had been endowed with the highest honors. And so Daniel, being summoned, read through and interpreted it: that because of the king's offense, who had profaned the vessels sacred to God, destruction was hanging over him, and his kingdom had been given to the Medes and Persians; which soon followed: for that same night Belshazzar perished, and Darius, a Mede by nation, took possession of his kingdom. He set Daniel, found of illustrious reputation, over the whole empire, following the judgment of the former kings: for both Nebuchadnezzar had set him over the kingdom, and Belshazzar, having given him a purple robe and a golden chain, had made him third prince of the kingdom.

Therefore those who were powerful in affairs together with him, being stirred by envy, because a foreigner of a captive people had been made equal to them, urge the king, corrupted by flattery, that for the next thirty days divine honors should be paid to him, and that no one should be permitted to pray to any lord but the king. This was easily persuaded upon Darius, by the folly common to all kings, who claim divine honors for themselves. Then Daniel, not unlearned or ignorant that prayers are to be offered to God and not to man, is made a defendant, for not having obeyed the king's edict: and though Darius, to whom he had always been dear and welcome, greatly refused, the princes prevailed that he be cast into the den; but when he was thrown to the beasts there was no danger. When the king learned this, he ordered the accusers to be given to the lions, who did not fare in like manner: for they were straightway devoured and satisfied the hunger of the beasts.

Daniel, illustrious before, began to be held more illustrious still. The king, having annulled his own edict, put forth a new one: that, errors and superstitions being abandoned, the God of Daniel should be worshiped. There also exist his visions, in which he revealed the order of the coming ages, comprising also the number of years, within which he declared that Christ would descend to the earth, as indeed came to pass, and clearly set forth that Antichrist would come. If anyone is more studious in this matter, he will find it more fully examined there: our purpose is only to weave together the order of events. Darius is said to have reigned eighteen years, at which time Astyages ruled over the Medes.

This man Cyrus, his grandson by a daughter, drove from the throne by force of Persian arms: whence the supreme power of the empire was transferred to the Persians. The Babylonians also passed under his power and dominion. Then, at the beginning of his reign, edicts having been publicly issued, he gives the Jews the power of returning to their native soil: he also restored the sacred vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had taken away from the temple of Jerusalem. And so a few then returned into Judea: whether the rest lacked the will or the means to return, we have not clearly learned. There was at that time among the Babylonians a bronze statue of Bel, a most ancient king, whom even Virgil mentions, which, consecrated by the superstition of men, Cyrus also was accustomed to worship, being deceived by the trick of its priests, who affirmed that the statue ate and drank, while they themselves secretly consumed the daily allowance which was brought in for the idol.

Then Cyrus, being on familiar terms with Daniel, asks him why he did not worship the statue, since it was a manifest sign of a living God, that the things brought to it should be consumed? Daniel, laughing at the man's error, denied that it could be so, that that bronze, that is, brute matter, should partake of food or drink. The king therefore orders the priests to be summoned (for they were nearly seventy), and, applying that terror, demands: who was consuming the offering, since Daniel, a man distinguished for prudence, maintained that this could in no way be done by an insensible statue? Then they, relying on a prepared trick, demand that the temple be entered and sealed by the king; on the condition that, unless everything were found consumed on the following day, they should pay the penalty with their lives: while the same condition should remain for Daniel.

And so the temple is sealed with the king's seal, after Daniel had first, unknown to the priests, sprinkled ashes on the pavement, so that the footprints of those entering by hidden passages might betray them. Then on the following day the king, entering the temple, noticed that the things he had ordered to be set before the idol had been consumed. Then Daniel reveals the hidden fraud, the footprints betraying it: that the priests, with their wives and children, having entered through an opening dug beneath, had devoured what had been set before the idol. Thus all were killed by order of the king: the temple and the statue were given into Daniel's power, and by his decision destroyed.

Meanwhile the Jews, whom we mentioned above as having returned to their native land by permission of Cyrus, having set about restoring the city and temple, made little progress, being few and poor; until, in about the hundredth year, while Artaxerxes was reigning as king of Persia, they were deterred from building by those who were in charge of those places. For at that time Syria and all Judea were governed under Persian rule through magistrates and governors. Therefore it was decided twice to write to King Artaxerxes, that the Jews ought not to be given the means of rebuilding their city, lest, their nature being stubborn, having resumed their strength, being accustomed to rule over other nations, they should not endure to live under foreign rule. Thus, the counsel of the governors having been approved by the king, the building of the city was forbidden, and put off until the second year of King Darius.

But at this point in time we insert which kings ruled over the Persians, so that the sequence of years may be more easily produced woven into order. After Darius the Mede, whom we noted reigned eighteen years, Cyrus held power for thirty-one years: waging war against the Scythians, he fell in battle, in the second year after Tarquinius Superbus had begun to reign at Rome. Cambyses, his son, succeeded Cyrus, and reigned nine years. He, when he was pressing Egypt and Ethiopia with war and had subdued them, and was returning victorious into Persia, wounded himself by accident, and died of that blow. After his death two Magi, brothers, Medes by nation, held the kingdom of the Persians for seven months. Seven of the noblest Persians conspired to kill them, of whom the chief was Darius, son of Hystaspes, born of a cousin of Cyrus on the father's side, and by the consent of all the kingdom was conferred upon him: he reigned thirty-six years.

He, four years before he died, fought at Marathon, a battle most celebrated in Greek and Roman histories. This took place about the two hundred and sixtieth year after the founding of Rome, in the consulship of Macerinus and Augurinus, that is, if the reckoning of the Roman consuls has not deceived me, 1388 years ago: for I have directed the whole reckoning of time to the consulship of Stilicho. After Darius came Xerxes, and he is said to have reigned twenty-one years: although in most copies I have found that his reign lasted twenty-five years. He was succeeded by Artaxerxes, whom we mentioned above. He, having ordered the building of the city and temple of Judea to be stopped, kept the work suspended until the second year of King Darius. But that the order of times may be connected up to him: Artaxerxes reigned forty-one years, Xerxes two months, and after him Sogdianus for seven months.

Then Darius, under whom the temple was restored, obtained the kingdom, whose name at that time was Ochus. He had among the Hebrews three young men of proven fidelity as guards of his body, and one of them, by a proof of his prudence, had turned the king's admiration upon himself; when the choice was offered him of asking whatever he had conceived in his mind, groaning over the ruins of his fatherland, he asked for the means of restoring the city, and obtained from the king that he should command the sub-kings and governors to hasten the building of the sacred house, expenses being furnished. Thus the temple was completed in four years, in the sixth year after Darius had begun to reign: and this seemed sufficient to the Jews; and because it was a great undertaking to restore the city, distrusting their strength, not daring to begin a work of such great labor, they confined themselves to the temple.

About the same time Ezra the scribe of the law, about twenty years after the temple had been completed, Darius now being dead, who had held power for one of the twenty years, by permission of the second Artaxerxes—not that one who was between the two Xerxes, but this one who had succeeded Darius Ochus—set out from Babylonia, and many followed him and arrived at Jerusalem; also vessels of diverse workmanship and gifts, which the king had sent to the temple of God, together with twelve Levites: for it is recorded that scarcely this number was found from that tribe. When he had discovered that the Jews were mixed with the marriages of the gentiles, he rebuked many and had them renounce marriages of this sort, and ordered the sons born of them to be expelled: and all obeyed the command: the people, purged, kept the rite of the old law.

But I find that Ezra did nothing concerning the rebuilding of the city: I believe he thought it a more pressing concern to reform the people from their corrupted morals.

At that time there was at Babylon Nehemiah, a royal minister, a Jew by nation, most dear to Artaxerxes for the merit of his services. He, having asked the Jews what the state of the paternal city was, when he learned that his fatherland lay in the same ruins, was disturbed in all his senses, and is recorded to have prayed to God with groaning and many tears, reflecting on the sins of his nation, and beseeching divine mercy. Therefore, when the king had noticed him at a banquet sadder than usual, he asked him to explain the cause of his griefs; then he bewailed the adversities of his nation and the ruin of the city, which now for nearly two hundred and fifty years lay leveled to the ground, a witness of evils, offering a spectacle to enemies: let the king grant him the power of going and restoring it.

The king yielded to his pious prayers, and immediately sent him off with a guard of horsemen, that he might travel more safely, having given letters to the governors that they should furnish what was necessary. When he had arrived at Jerusalem, he distributed the work of the city to the people man by man; and all eagerly attended to what was commanded, and the work had already progressed to the middle, when, envy of the nations blazing forth, the neighboring cities conspired to interrupt the work, and to deter the Jews from building.

But Nehemiah, having set up defenses against those attacking, undertook his projects unafraid, and the wall having been completed, and the leaves of the gates finished, he measured out the city by families for the building of houses within, and judged the people by no means equal to the city: for no more than fifty thousand of mixed sex and rank were found, so much had been consumed from that once immense number by frequent wars, or was held in captivity: for once these two tribes, of which this was the remnant, when they were separated from the ten tribes, had armed three hundred and twenty thousand men: given over by God on account of sin to slaughter and captivity, they had come down to this present paucity. But this people, as I have said, was of two tribes: the ten, however, which had earlier been led away, scattered through the Parthians, Medes, Indians and Ethiopians, never returned to their native soil; and to this day they are held under the dominion of barbarian nations.

But the completion of the restored city is recorded in the thirty-second year of the reign of Artaxerxes: from which time up to the cross of Christ, that is, to the consuls Fusius Geminus and Rubellius, there are three hundred and ninety-eight years. Moreover from the restoration of the temple up to its destruction, which was accomplished under the consul Vespasian Augustus by Titus Caesar, there are four hundred and eighty-three years. This was foretold long ago by Daniel, who had pronounced that from the restoration of the temple up to its destruction sixty-nine weeks would pass. But from the day of the captivity of the Jews up to the time of the restored city there were two hundred sixty years.

We suppose that Esther and Judith belong to this stretch of time; but I could not easily discern to which kings, chiefly, I should connect their acts: for although Esther is referred to under king Artaxerxes (moreover I have found there were two Persian kings of this name), there is much hesitation as to which times this should be applied; it has seemed to me, however, to connect the history of Esther with this Artaxerxes under whom Jerusalem was restored: because it is not likely that, if she had lived under the earlier Artaxerxes, whose times [lacuna] he had covered, he would have made no mention of so illustrious a woman; especially since it is agreed that the building of the temple was forbidden by that Artaxerxes, as we have mentioned above: nor would Esther have permitted this then, if she had then been in marriage with him; now let me set forth the events.

At that time the king had in marriage a certain Vashti, a woman of wondrous beauty: whose beauty when he was proclaiming to everyone, on a certain day when he was giving a public feast, he ordered the queen to be present for the sake of displaying her beauty. She, however, wiser than the foolish king, being modest of exposing the spectacle of her body to the eyes of men, refused the command; by which insult the barbarian's mind was so moved that he cast his wife from marriage and from the palace. Therefore when a girl was sought for the king's marriage in her place, Esther was found to surpass the rest in beauty: she was a Jewess of the tribe of Benjamin, orphaned of both parents, raised by Mordecai, her cousin.

When she was led to the royal marriage, at the instructor's command she concealed her lineage and homeland: being warned lest, forgetful of the traditions of her fathers, though she should enter as a captive into marriage with a foreigner, she should partake of the foods of the gentiles.

Therefore, joined to the king, shortly, as happens, by the force of her beauty she easily captured his whole mind: so much so that he gave her, made equal to his rule, a royal insignia, a purple garment. At that time Mordecai was among the king's closest attendants, curator, for his part, of household affairs. He had betrayed a plot devised against the king by two eunuchs: and from that he became dearer, and endowed with the highest honors. At that time there was a certain Haman very intimate with the king, whom he had ordered to be adored, made equal to himself, after the manner of kings. This Mordecai, alone of all, disdained to do, and had gravely kindled the Persian's hatred against himself.

Therefore Haman, directing his mind to the destruction of the Hebrew, goes to the king; and affirms that there is in his kingdom a race of men, hateful to God and men for their depraved superstitions, living by foreign laws, worthy of destruction: that it was right to give the whole nation over to slaughter, and he promises immense wealth from their goods. This was easily persuaded upon the barbarian: an edict is issued, that the Jews be killed; and men were immediately sent, who might promulgate the edict throughout the whole kingdom from India even to Ethiopia.

When this had become known to Mordecai, he wraps himself in sackcloth, his clothes torn, and, sprinkled with ashes, goes to the palace, and there fills everything with much wailing and lament: "An unworthy deed, that an undeserving nation should perish, and no cause for perishing is given." Esther, roused by the voice of the mourner, learns the matter as it was; then indeed, doubtful in counsel, because there was no power of approaching the king: for by the custom of the Persians it is not permitted for the queen to enter to the king, unless summoned: nor is she admitted whenever it pleases the king, but at an appointed time; and it happened by chance then, that for the next thirty days Esther was to be kept separated from the king's sight. Therefore, thinking that something must be dared for her fellow citizens, even though certain destruction was at hand, she prepares to fall in a noble undertaking: having first invoked the Lord, she enters the king's court.

But the barbarian, struck by the unaccustomed sight, gradually softened by womanly charm, was at last led to dine with the queen, and together with him that Haman, dear to the king and hostile to the Jewish nation. Therefore when, after the feast, the banquet had begun to grow warm with many cups, Esther falls at the king's knees, entreats for the deliverance of her nation from destruction. But the king promises that he will deny her nothing further that she might ask. Then Esther, seizing the opportunity, demands the death of Haman in vengeance for the nation which he had desired to destroy. But the king, mindful of his friend, hesitates for a little while, and withdrew a short distance for the sake of deliberating. Then, returning, he saw Haman embracing the queen's knees: inflamed with anger, and crying out that the queen had been assaulted, he orders him to be put to death.

And then it became known to the king that the punishment of the cross had been prepared by Haman for Mordecai: so Haman himself is fastened to that same cross, and all his goods were given to Mordecai, and the Jews were absolved. Artaxerxes reigned sixty-two years, and Ochus succeeded him.

I shall rightly place the acts of Judith in agreement with this order of events, for she is recorded to have lived after the captivity; but sacred history has not disclosed who reigned over the Persians at that time: yet the king under whom those things were done it calls Nabuchodonosor, not indeed that one who took Jerusalem, but I find that none by this name reigned among the Persians after the captivity, unless, perhaps, on account of his impatience and similar undertakings, whoever that king was, he was called Nabuchodonosor by the Jews. Most, however, think it was Cambyses, son of king Cyrus, because as victor he penetrated Egypt and Ethiopia; but the same sacred history opposes this opinion: for it is signified that Judith lived in the twelfth year of that king; but Cambyses held power no more than nine years.

Whence, if it is permissible to conjecture in history, I would believe these things to have been done under king Ochus, who came after the second Artaxerxes; and I conjecture this also from the fact that this same Ochus (as I have read in certain secular writings) is recorded to have been by nature harsh and eager for wars: for he both waged war upon his neighbors, and recovered Egypt, which had revolted many years before, by war. At which time also he is recorded to have mocked their sacred rites, and Apis received as a god: whereupon afterward Bagoas, his eunuch, of Egyptian nation, indignant, avenged the insult to his nation by the death of the king. Now sacred history recalls this Bagoas: for when Holofernes had led an army by the king's order against the Jews, it recorded that Bagoas was in that same camp: whence I might not unreasonably adduce this as an argument for our opinion, that that king, called Nabuchodonosor, was Ochus, under whom worldly historians have handed down that Bagoas lived.

But it ought to seem wonderful to no one that the writers of secular literature touched upon nothing of these things which are written in the sacred volumes; the Spirit of God prevailing, so that, untainted by a corrupt mouth mixing false things with true, the history might be contained within its own mysteries only, which, separated from the affairs of the world, and to be brought forth only by sacred voices, ought not to be mixed with other things as by equal lot; for it would have been most unworthy that, while others were engaged in other pursuits, or seeking other things, these things too should be mingled with the rest. But I shall proceed to the remaining matters, and go through the deeds of Judith, as briefly as I can, in a few words.

Therefore, when the Jews had returned, as we recorded above, to their native soil, and the condition of affairs or of the city was not yet settled, the king of the Persians made war upon the Medes, and engaged in battle against their king, Arphaxad by name; and having slain the king in a successful outcome, he joined that nation to his empire. He did the same to the remaining nations, sending ahead Holofernes, whom he had chosen as commander of his forces, with one hundred and twenty thousand foot-soldiers and twelve thousand horse. He, having devastated Cilicia and Arabia by war, took many cities either by force or compelled them into surrender through fear; and now the army, brought up to Damascus, had struck the Jews with great terror. But being unequal to resistance, and yet not inclined to yield their minds to surrender—since they had experienced beforehand the evils of captivity—they gathered together in crowds at the temple.

There, with common groaning and mingled wailing, they implored divine aid: that they had already paid enough penalties to the Lord for their sins or crimes; that at least he would spare the rest who had lately been freed from servitude.

Meanwhile Holofernes, having received the surrender of the Moabites and having taken them into alliance for war against the Jews, when he inquired of their leaders on what strength the Hebrews relied that they had not surrendered, a certain Achior explained what he knew: that the Jews were worshippers of God, instructed by their fathers in pious rite; that once in Egypt they had endured servitude; that thence, by divine favor, they had been led out, and had crossed the dried sea on foot; that finally, having conquered all nations, they had recovered the lands inhabited by their ancestors; that thereafter, through varying fortunes, they had flourished or fallen, and again emerged from misfortunes, experiencing by turns a God either angered or appeased according to their deserts; that while sinning they were checked by incursions of enemies or by captivities, yet remained ever unconquered when the divine will was favorable; but that if at the present time they were without sin, they could in no way be overcome; but if it were otherwise with them, they would easily be conquered.

To this Holofernes, fierce from many victories, thinking nothing invincible to himself, inflamed with anger that his victory should be thought to depend chiefly upon the sin of the Jews, ordered Achior to be driven into the camp of the Hebrews, so that he might perish with those whom he had affirmed could not be conquered—the deed being done, the Jews had made for the mountains. Thus those to whom the task had been given proceeded to the base of the mountains, and there left Achior bound. When the Jews noticed this, they brought him, freed from his bonds, up to the hill; and when they asked the reasons for the matter, he related what had happened, and being received, he awaited a like end; he, after the victory, was circumcised and made a Jew. Then Holofernes, having learned the difficulty of the terrain, because the heights could not be approached, surrounded the mountains with soldiers, and with the utmost care kept the Hebrews from water sources; and so they felt the siege the sooner.

And so, overcome by lack of water, they all rushed to Ozias their leader, inclined to surrender; but he answered that they must wait a little while and look for divine aid, and set the fifteenth day as the time for surrender.

When Judith learned of this (a widow of her husband, very rich in wealth, notable for beauty, but more illustrious in character than in countenance, who was then in the camp), thinking that in the straitened circumstances of her people, even at the certain risk of her own destruction, something must be dared and attempted, she arranges her hair, adorns her face, and with a maidservant as companion enters the camp of the enemy. And straightway, being brought before Holofernes, she recounts the ruined state of her people, saying that she had taken counsel for her life by flight; then she asks of the general free leave to go out of the camp by night to pray; this was entrusted to the watchmen and gate-keepers. But when for three days she had established with the barbarians the habit of going out and returning, a desire seized Holofernes to abuse the body of the surrendered woman; for indeed by her excellent beauty she had easily moved the Persian.

Thus she is brought to the general's tent through Bagoas the eunuch, and a banquet being begun, the barbarian overwhelmed himself with much wine; then, the attendants having withdrawn, before he could do violence to the woman, he was overtaken by sleep. Judith, seizing the moment, cuts off the head of the enemy and carries it away with her; and though she was believed to be going out of the camp according to her custom, she returned unharmed to her people. The next day the Hebrews, displaying the head of Holofernes from the heights, make a sally and advance toward the camp of the enemy. Then indeed the barbarians, calling for the signal of battle, crowd about the general's tent; where, the headless body being found, turned to flight in foul terror, they gave their backs to the enemy. The Jews, pursuing the fugitives, and having slain many thousands, gained possession of the camp and the plunder. Judith, celebrated with the highest praises, is recorded to have lived one hundred and five years.

If these things happened, as we suppose, under King Ochus, in the twelfth year of his reign; from the time of the restoration of Jerusalem to this war there were twenty-two years. Moreover Ochus reigned twenty-three years; he was, beyond all others, bloodthirsty and of more than barbarous spirit. Him Bagoas the eunuch, when he was ill, removed by poison. After him Arses his son held the empire for three years: Darius, four years.

Against this man Alexander of Macedon engaged in battle; he being defeated, the empire was taken away from the Persians, which from the beginning of Cyrus had stood for two hundred and fifty years. Alexander, victor over nearly all nations, is said to have visited the temple at Jerusalem, and to have brought in gifts; and he decreed throughout the whole empire which he had made subject to his own authority, that it should be free for the Jews living there to return to their homeland. When the twelfth year of his reign had passed, seven years after he had conquered Darius, he died at Babylon. His friends, who together with him had waged those great wars, divided the kingdom among themselves. Thereafter, for some time, they administered the portions they had undertaken without assuming the royal title, while a certain Arridaeus, brother of Philip, father of Alexander, reigned; to whom, being very feeble, the empire seemed in word to be given, but in fact it lay with those who had distributed the army and the provinces among themselves.

Nor indeed did this state of affairs long remain, and all preferred to be called kings. The first king in Syria after Alexander was Seleucus, Persia and Babylon being subject to him; at which time the Jews paid an annual tribute of three hundred talents of silver to the king; yet they were not governed by foreign magistrates, but by their own priests, and lived according to their ancestral rite, until the majority of them, corrupted again by long peace, began to mingle everything with seditions and to cause disturbance, aspiring to the high priesthood out of lust, avarice, and desire of domination.

For first, under King Seleucus, son of Antiochus the Great, a certain Simon, having falsely accused before the king Onias the priest, a holy and upright man, was unable to bring about his ruin. Then, after some time had passed, Jason, brother of Onias, approached King Antiochus, who had succeeded his brother Seleucus, promising an increase of tribute if the high priesthood were handed over to him; and although it was unaccustomed and had never before been permitted to anyone to hold the priesthood in perpetuity, yet the king's mind, anxious and sick with avarice, was easily overcome. Thus, Onias being driven out, the priesthood was entrusted to Jason. He most foully lacerated the citizens and the homeland. Then, when through a certain Menelaus, brother of that Simon, he had sent to the king the promised money, the way to ambition having once been opened, by the same arts by which Jason had before, Menelaus too obtained the priesthood.

And not long after, when he had not paid the promised amount of silver, he was driven from his place: Lysimachus was substituted. Thereafter there were foul contests between Jason and Menelaus, until Jason, a fugitive, departed from his homeland. From these beginnings, with morals corrupted, matters proceeded to such a point that most of the common people asked Antiochus that they be permitted to live according to the custom of the nations. When the king had granted this to their petition, the worst of them began, in eager rivalry, to build shrines, to worship idols, to profane the law. Meanwhile Antiochus, returning from Alexandria (for he had then made war upon the Egyptian king; which war, by order of the Roman senate and people, he laid down, in the consulship of Paulus and Crassus), came to Jerusalem. Having found the people divided by the superstitions they had taken up, destroying the law of God, and favoring those who followed impious practices, he stripped away all the ornaments of the temple, and devastated it with much slaughter.

This was done in the one hundred and fifty-first year from the death of Alexander, in the consulship, as we said, of Paulus and Crassus, about five years after Antiochus had begun to reign.

But so that the order of times may be joined together, and it may be more clearly evident who this Antiochus was, we shall enumerate both the names and the times of the kings who were in Syria after Alexander. King Alexander having died, as we related above, the whole kingdom was divided by his friends, and administered for some time without royal title. Seleucus, after nine years, was called king in Syria, and reigned thirty-two years. After him Antiochus, his son, nineteen years. Then Antiochus, son of Antiochus, who was also surnamed Theos, fifteen years. After him Seleucus his son, surnamed Callinicus, twenty-one years. Likewise Seleucus, son of Callinicus, three years. He having died, Antiochus, brother of Callinicus, held Asia and Syria thirty-seven years. This is the Antiochus against whom Scipio, brother of Africanus, made war: in which war he was defeated, and mulcted of part of his empire. He had two sons, Seleucus and Antiochus, whom he had given to the Romans as a hostage.

Thus, when Antiochus the Great had died, Seleucus, his younger son, obtained the kingdom: under whom we said Onias the priest was accused by Simon. Then Antiochus was released by the Romans, and Demetrius, son of King Seleucus who then reigned, was given as hostage in his place. Seleucus having died in the twelfth year of his reign, his brother Antiochus, who had been a hostage at Rome, seized the kingdom. He, five years after he had begun to reign, as we showed above, laid waste Jerusalem: for indeed, paying a heavy tribute to the Romans, he himself, almost of necessity, on account of his immense expenses, was compelled to seek money by plunder, and to omit no opportunity of pillaging. After two years, then, the Jews being afflicted again with a like disaster, lest perhaps, driven by repeated evils, they should take up war, he set a garrison over the citadel.

Then, undertaking to overthrow the sacred law, he sent forth an edict that all, abandoning the traditions of their ancestors, should live according to the rite of the nations. Nor were there lacking those who willingly obeyed the profane command. Then indeed—a foul spectacle!—throughout the whole world, openly in the public squares, sacrifice was offered to the gods; even the sacred scrolls of the law and the prophets were burned with fire.

At that time Mattathias, son of John, was priest. When he was being compelled by royal edict to obey, with remarkable constancy he despised profane things and, before the eyes of all, slew a Hebrew who was publicly profaning himself. Then at last, a leader having been found, a withdrawal took place. Mattathias, having gone out of the town, with many flocking to him, had formed the appearance of a proper army; to all of whom it was resolved to defend themselves by arms against the profane rule, and to perish in war rather than perform impious ceremonies. Meanwhile Antiochus, through the Greek cities as well which were within his empire, compelled Jews who were found there to sacrifice, and afflicted those who resisted with unheard-of tortures. At that time occurred that illustrious suffering of the seven brothers and their mother: who, all being compelled by torments to violate the law of God and the institutions of their fathers, chose rather to die. At the last, the mother accompanied their punishments and deaths.

Meanwhile Mattathias died. As deputy over the army which he had prepared, he substituted his son Judas as leader. Under his command, in frequent battles against the royal forces, things went prosperously: for first he destroyed with his whole army Apollonius, the enemy's commander, who had come down into conflict with great forces. When a certain Seron, who then commanded in Syria, learned of this, having multiplied his legions, he attacked Judas fiercely, because he was superior in numbers; but when it came to combat, he was routed and put to flight, and returned to Syria having lost about eight hundred men. When this became known to Antiochus, he was inflamed with anger and grief (for he was tormented that his generals had been defeated with great armies), and he gathered aid from throughout the whole kingdom: he lavished a donative on the soldiers, his treasuries being utterly exhausted. For indeed at that time he was especially gravely afflicted by lack of money.

For as the Jews fell away from him, who had paid him more than three hundred talents of silver annually, and moreover, as the Greek cities and many regions were thrown into confusion by the evil of persecution (for he had not spared even the gentiles, whom he had attempted to make abandon their inveterate superstitions and be led to a single rite; these indeed, where there was nothing sacred, readily abandoning them; but all nevertheless afflicted with fear and disaster), the revenues had ceased. Being distressed by these matters (for he himself, once more wealthy than all kings, now felt poverty through his own crime), he divided his forces with Lysias, and entrusted to him Syria and the war against the Jews, himself setting out into Persia to collect tribute. Therefore Lysias chose commanders for the war, Ptolemy, Gorgias, Doron, and Nicanor; to these were given forty thousand foot and seven thousand horse, and by their first assault they brought great terror upon the Jews.

Then Judas, though all despaired, exhorted his men to go down into battle with brave spirit: trusting in God, nothing would be unconquerable; often before, the few had fought well against the many. A fast being proclaimed and a sacrifice celebrated, they went down into battle, and the enemy's forces were routed. Judas took possession of the camp, and much gold and much Tyrian wealth was found there: for merchants from Syria, having no doubt of victory, had followed the royal army in hope of buying captives, and became plunder themselves. When this became known to Lysias through messengers, he prepared his forces with greater care, and a year later attacked the Jews with an immense army. Defeated again, he withdrew to Antioch.

Judas, having driven off the enemy, returned to Jerusalem, and set his mind to purifying the temple and restoring it, which, having been overthrown by Antiochus and profaned by the gentiles, presented a foul appearance. But since the Syrians held the citadel (which was adjacent to the temple and, by the nature of the place, higher and impregnable), the places beneath could not be approached, being hindered by frequent sallies. Against these Judas set the strongest force of his men: thus the work of the sacred building was attended to, and the temple was surrounded with a wall, and men were appointed who, under arms, should keep perpetual guard. But Lysias, having increased his army, returned into Judaea, and was again defeated, with great slaughter of his army and of the auxiliaries which the cities had conspired to send him for the war.

Meanwhile Antiochus, whom we mentioned above as having set out into Persia, attempted to plunder the town of Elymais, the wealthiest of that region, and a shrine situated there, filled with much gold; but being put to flight, as a multitude gathered from every side for the defense of the place, he received besides the news that affairs had been badly conducted, whether by Lysias or by Lysimachus: and so from grief of mind he fell into bodily illness. But while he was tormented with inward pains, remembering the evils with which he had afflicted the people of God, he confessed that these things had rightly befallen him; then after a few days he died, having reigned eleven years. He left the kingdom to his son Antiochus, who was named Eupator.

At that time Judas was besieging the Syrians stationed in the citadel: who, being afflicted by famine and want, sent messengers to the king imploring aid. So Eupator came to their assistance with a hundred thousand men and twenty thousand horsemen, with elephants leading the battle line to great terror. Then Judas, having relaxed the siege, went out to meet the king, and in the first battle routed the Syrians. The king sought peace: because, having ill used a faithless disposition, vengeance followed his perfidy. For Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, whom we mentioned above as having been given as a hostage to the Romans, when he heard that Antiochus had died, asked that he be sent back to the kingdom: and when this was refused him, he secretly fled from Rome, came into Syria, and seized the kingdom, having killed his son Antiochus, who had reigned one year and six months. Under this king's reign the Jews first sought friendship and alliance with the Roman people: and the embassy was kindly received.

By decree of the Senate they were called allies and friends. Meanwhile Demetrius was waging war against Judas through his generals, and first through a certain Bacchides and Alcimus the Jew the army was led; afterward Nicanor, put in charge of the war, fell in battle. Then Bacchides and Alcimus, having renewed their forces and increased their troops, engaged Judas. In that battle the Syrians used a very bloody victory. The Hebrews chose Jonathan, Judas's brother, in Judas's place. Meanwhile Alcimus, after foully devastating Jerusalem, died: Bacchides, deprived of his ally, returned to the king. Then after two years Bacchides again brought war upon the Jews: being defeated he sought peace; which was granted upon the conditions proposed: that he should return deserters and captives and everything seized in war.

While these things were being done within Judaea, a certain young man, raised at Rhodes, named Alexander, claiming to be the son of Antiochus (which was false), aided by the resources of Ptolemy, king of Alexandria, came into Syria with an army: he defeated Demetrius in war and killed him, when he had reigned twelve years. This Alexander, before he engaged Demetrius, had made a treaty with Jonathan, and had presented him with a purple robe and royal insignia: on account of which Jonathan had aided him with auxiliaries, and after Demetrius was conquered had been the first of all to run to congratulate him. Nor did Alexander afterward violate the faith he had given: thus for the five years during which he held power, the affairs of the Jews were tranquil.

Then Demetrius, son of Demetrius, who after his father's death had fled to Crete, urged on by Listhenes, leader of the Cretans, seeking to recover his father's kingdom by war, being unequal in strength, implored the aid of Ptolemy Philometor, king of Egypt, father-in-law of Alexander, who was already then hostile to his son-in-law. He indeed, allured not so much by the entreaties of a suppliant as by the hope of seizing Syria, joined his forces with him, and gave to Demetrius his daughter, who had been married to Alexander. Against these Alexander joined battle: in that fight Ptolemy fell; Alexander was defeated and shortly after killed, having reigned five years, or, as I have found in most authors, nine.

Demetrius, having obtained the kingdom, treated Jonathan kindly, made a treaty with him, and restored the Jews to their own laws. Meanwhile Tryphon, who had been of Alexander's party, prefect of Syria [lacuna] Intending to prevent him by war, he came down into battle against Jonathan, terrible with an army of forty thousand. When Tryphon saw himself unequal, he feigned peace: and having received him into friendship, and invited him to Ptolemais, he killed him. Afterward the supreme command of affairs was conferred upon Simon, Jonathan's brother. He magnificently arranged his brother's funeral, and built those seven pyramids of most noble workmanship, in which he laid the bones of his brothers and his father. Then Demetrius, having renewed the treaty with the Jews, in consideration of the disaster inflicted by Tryphon (for after Jonathan's death he had devastated their cities and fields with war), remitted forever their annual tribute: for up to that time they had paid tribute to the kings of Syria, unless they resisted with arms.

This was done in the second year of King Demetrius: which we have therefore noted, because up to this year we have run through the times of the Asian kings, so that the order of the times might be clearly arranged. But now we shall arrange the order of events through the times of those who were pontiffs or kings of the Jews, up to the birth of Christ.

Therefore after Jonathan, Simon his brother, as was said above, ruled the Hebrews by the right of pontiff: for this honor was conferred upon him both by his own people and by the Roman people. He, having begun to preside over the citizens in the second year of King Demetrius, after eight years was overtaken and killed by the treachery of Ptolemy. His son John succeeded him, who, having fought outstandingly against the Hyrcanians, a very strong nation, received the surname Hyrcanus. He died having held power twenty-six years. After him Aristobulus was appointed pontiff, the first of all after the captivity to assume the royal name, and to place a diadem on his head. Having completed a year he died. Then Alexander his son was both king and pontiff: he reigned twenty-seven years; in whose deeds I have found nothing worthy of memory except cruelty. He, having left small sons Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, his wife Salina, or Alexandra, held the kingdom for nine years. After her death there were foul contentions between the brothers over the kingdom.

And at first Hyrcanus held the rule; soon, driven out by his brother Aristobulus, he fled to Pompey, who then, having finished the Mithridatic war and pacified Armenia and Pontus, victor over all the nations he had approached, desiring to press inward and to join whatever neighboring lands to the Roman empire, was seeking causes for war and material for conquest. So he gladly received Hyrcanus, and under his leadership attacked the Jews. The city and the citadel having been taken, he spared the temple. He sent Aristobulus in chains to Rome: he restored to Hyrcanus the right of the pontificate: and having imposed tribute upon the Jews, he set over them as procurator a certain Antipater of Ascalon. Hyrcanus, having held power thirty-four years, while waging war against the Parthians, is captured.

Then Herod, a foreigner, son of Antipater of Ascalon, sought the kingdom of Judaea from the senate and the Roman people, and received it. This was the first foreign king the Jews began to have: for now, with Christ's coming already at hand, it was necessary, according to the prophecies of the prophets, that they be deprived of their own leaders, lest they expect anything further beyond Christ. Under this Herod, in the thirty-third year of his reign, Christ was born, in the consulship of Sabinus and Rufinus, on the eighth day before the kalends of January. But these things which are contained in the Gospels and afterward in the Acts of the Apostles, I have not dared to touch, lest by the form of a compressed work I should diminish the dignity of the matters; I shall pursue the rest. Herod reigned four years after the Nativity of the Lord, for the whole time of his rule was thirty-seven years, after whom Archelaus was tetrarch for nine years. Herod for twenty-four years.

In his reign, in the eighteenth year of his rule, the Lord was crucified, in the consulship of Fufius Geminus and Rubellius Geminus, from which time to the consulship of Stilicho there are three hundred seventy-two years.

Luke published the Acts of the Apostles, up to the time when Paul was brought to Rome, Nero being emperor: who—I will not say of kings, but of all men, even of savage beasts, the most vile—proved to be the one worthy to be the first to begin persecution against the Christians: I know not whether he will also be the last to accomplish it, since it is held by the opinion of many that Antichrist himself will come.

To set forth his vices more fully, the matter itself would prompt me, were it not that it does not belong to this work to enter upon such vast matters: I am content only to have noted this, that he, most foul and most cruel in all things, proceeded so far as to kill his mother; afterward he even "married" a certain Pythagoras in the manner of solemn marriages: and a bridal veil was placed upon the emperor, and a dowry and a marriage bed and wedding torches, and finally all those things which are beheld even in women, not without shame, were displayed. But as for the rest of his deeds, it is uncertain whether it is more irksome or more shameful to discuss them. There he first attempted to abolish the Christian name: for vices are always hostile to virtues, and the best men are looked upon by the wicked as if in reproach.

For at that time the divine religion had grown strong in the city, with Peter holding the episcopate there, and Paul, after he had appealed to Caesar from the unjust judgment of the governor, having been brought to Rome: to hear whom many then gathered; who, the truth being understood, and moved by the virtues of the Apostles, which they then frequently displayed, betook themselves to the worship of God. For at that time there occurred that famous encounter of Peter and Paul against Simon, who, supported by two demons, so that he might prove himself a god by magic arts, had flown up, but, the demons being put to flight by the prayers of the Apostles, fell to the earth, and, in the sight of the people, was torn apart.

Meanwhile, the multitude of Christians already abounding, it happened that Rome was burned by a fire, Nero being then established at Antium; but the opinion of all turned the odium of the fire back upon the emperor, and it was believed that the emperor had sought the glory of renewing the city; nor could Nero, by any means, prevent it from being thought that the fire had been ordered by him. Therefore he turned the odium onto the Christians, and most cruel inquiries were carried out against the innocent, and even new forms of death were devised, so that, covered with the skins of wild beasts, they perished by the mangling of dogs; many were fastened to crosses, or burned by fire: many were reserved for this, that when day had failed, they should be burned for use as nocturnal light. This was the beginning of the fury against the Christians. Afterward, even by the enactment of laws, the religion was forbidden, and openly, by edicts publicly posted, it was not permitted to be a Christian.

Then Paul and Peter were condemned to death: of whom one had his neck severed by the sword. Peter was raised upon a cross. While these things were being done at Rome, the Jews, not enduring the injuries of their governor Festus Florus, began to rebel. Against them Vespasian was sent by Nero with proconsular power, and, after many heavy battles, compelled the defeated to take refuge within the walls of Jerusalem. Meanwhile Nero, already hateful even to himself because of the consciousness of his crimes, was removed from human affairs: it is uncertain whether he brought death upon himself. Certainly his body was destroyed. Hence it is believed that, even though he ran himself through with a sword, his wound was healed and he was preserved, according to that which is written of him: "And the wound of his death was healed"; to be sent at the end of the age, that he may carry out the mystery of iniquity.

Therefore, upon the death of Nero, Galba seized the empire: soon Otho, having killed Galba, took it over. Then Vitellius, relying on the armies in Gaul which he commanded, entered the City, and having killed Otho, usurped the state of affairs; which, after it was reported to Vespasian—though by a bad precedent, yet with a good intent of vindicating the republic from wicked men—while he was besieging Jerusalem, he took up the empire: and, as is the custom, having placed a diadem on his head, was saluted emperor by the army, and made his son Titus Caesar; to him was given a part of the forces and the task of besieging Jerusalem. Vespasian, having set out for Rome, was received with the highest favor of the senate and people, and, when Vitellius had killed himself, confirmed his rule.

Meanwhile the Jews, shut in by the siege, since no opportunity was given either for peace or for surrender, were perishing at last of famine; and everywhere the streets began to be filled with corpses, the duty of burial now overcome. Indeed, daring even every unspeakable thing besides, they did not spare even human bodies, except such as decay had snatched away from that kind of food. So, the defenders now exhausted, the Romans broke in, and at that time, as it happened, on the day of Passover the whole multitude had gathered from the fields and other towns of Judea: doubtless it was so pleasing to God, that at the time in which the impious nation had fixed the Lord to the cross, it should be given over to destruction. The Pharisees resisted most fiercely for a while on behalf of the temple: until, their minds set obstinately toward death, they cast themselves into the flames of their own accord. The number of those slain is reported at eleven hundred thousand: but a hundred thousand were captured and sold.

It is told that Titus, having taken counsel, first deliberated whether he should overthrow a temple of such great work: for to some it seemed that the sacred shrine, illustrious beyond all mortal things, ought not to be destroyed: which, if preserved, would furnish testimony to Roman moderation, but if destroyed, would offer an everlasting mark of cruelty. But on the contrary, others, and Titus himself, judged above all that the temple should be overthrown, so that the religion of the Jews and of the Christians might be more fully abolished, since these religions, though contrary to one another, nevertheless sprang from the same authors; the Christians had arisen from the Jews; the root being removed, the stock would easily perish. Thus, by the will of God, with the minds of all inflamed, the temple was destroyed, three hundred thirty-one years ago from now.

And this last overthrow of the temple and the final captivity of the Jews, by which they are seen exiled from their homeland and scattered throughout the world, bear daily testimony to the world, that they were punished for no other cause than for having laid impious hands upon Christ: for often on other occasions, when they were given over to captivities on account of their sins, they never paid the penalty of servitude for more than seventy years.

Then, after an interval of time, Domitian, son of Vespasian, persecuted the Christians. At which time he banished John, the apostle and evangelist, to the island of Patmos: where he, having had hidden mysteries revealed to him, wrote and published the book of the sacred Apocalypse (which indeed by many is not received, either foolishly or impiously). Not much time afterward, the third persecution was under Trajan; who, when by tortures and inquiries he had found nothing in the Christians worthy of death or punishment, forbade further cruelty against them. Then under Hadrian the Jews wished to rebel, attempting to plunder Syria and Palestine: an army being sent, they were subdued.

At that time Hadrian, thinking he would destroy the Christian faith by the injury done to the place, [lacuna] set up in the temples and in the place of the Lord's Passion images of demons; and (because the Christians were most especially thought to be from the Jews: for at that time the Church at Jerusalem had a bishop only from the circumcision) he ordered a cohort of soldiers to keep permanent watch, which would bar all Jews from access to Jerusalem. This indeed benefited the Christian faith, because at that time almost all believed Christ to be God while still observing the law. Doubtless this was arranged by the Lord's ordaining, that the servitude of the law might be removed from the freedom of faith and of the Church: thus then for the first time Mark, from among the Gentiles, was bishop at Jerusalem. The fourth persecution is counted under Hadrian, which nevertheless he afterward forbade to be carried on, pronouncing it unjust that anyone should be made a defendant without a charge.

After Hadrian, under the reign of Antoninus Pius, there was peace for the churches.

Then under Aurelius, son of Antoninus, the fifth persecution was carried on. And then for the first time martyrdoms were seen within Gaul, the religion of God having been received rather late beyond the Alps. Then, sixth, under the reign of Severus, there was vexation of the Christians; at which time Leonidas, the father of Origen, shed his sacred blood in martyrdom. Then, after an interval of thirty-eight years, there was peace for the Christians: except that in the meantime Maximinus vexed the clergy of some churches. Soon, under the reign of Decius, already then the seventh persecution raged against the Christians. Then Valerian was the eighth enemy of the saints. After him, after an interval of nearly fifty years, under the reigns of Diocletian and Maximian, a most bitter persecution arose, which for ten continuous years ravaged the people of God.

At that time almost the whole world was stained with the sacred blood of martyrs: for men rushed eagerly into glorious contests, and martyrdoms were then sought with far more eagerness for glorious deaths, than bishoprics are now sought with depraved ambitions. Never was the world more exhausted by any wars; nor did we ever conquer with a greater triumph than when, by the slaughters of ten years, we could not be conquered. There also exist, committed to writing, the splendid accounts of the martyrs' sufferings of that time: which I did not think should be joined here, lest I exceed the measure of the work.

But the end of that persecution was eighty-nine years ago from now, from which time Christian emperors began to be: for then Constantine held power, who was the first of all Roman princes to be a Christian. Indeed then Licinius, because he contended against Constantine for the empire, had ordered his soldiers to offer sacrifice: those refusing he dismissed from military service. But this is not reckoned among the persecutions: so much a matter of lesser weight was it than to reach the wounds of the churches. From then on, in tranquil affairs, we enjoy peace, nor do we believe there will be any further persecution, except that which the Antichrist will carry out near the end of the age already: for it has been pronounced by the sacred voices that the world is to be afflicted with ten plagues: thus, since there have already been nine, the one that remains will be the last. In this course of time it is wonderful how much the Christian religion has grown strong.

For then Jerusalem, bristling with ruins, was adorned with most frequent and most magnificent churches: for Helena, mother of prince Constantine, who as Augusta reigned together with her son, when she had desired to visit Jerusalem, found idols and temples there and destroyed them; then, using the resources of the kingdom, she established basilicas at the place of the Lord's Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension. It is a marvel, that the place in which the divine footsteps last stood, when the Lord was taken up into heaven in a cloud, could not be joined together with pavement with the rest of the paved area: for whatever was applied there, the earth, unaccustomed to receive human works, refused, the marbles often being thrown back into the faces of those who set them.

Indeed there is so lasting a testimony of the dust trodden by God, that the imprinted footprints are seen, and although the faith of those who daily flock there eagerly carries off the dust trodden by the Lord, still the sand feels no loss: and the same earth still preserves the appearance of itself, as if sealed with the imprinted footprints.

By the same queen's benefaction the Cross of the Lord was then found, which neither in the beginning, with the Jews opposing, could be consecrated, and afterward, buried under the rubble of the destroyed city, deserved to be shown only to one seeking so faithfully. So Helena, first made certain of the place of the Passion, having brought up a military force, and with a multitude of all the provincials vying in zeal for the queen, ordered the earth to be dug up and all the neighboring and most vast heaps of ruins to be cleared: soon, as the reward of faith and labor, three crosses alike were found, just as had once been fixed for the Lord and the two thieves. But here a greater difficulty in discerning the gibbet on which the Lord had hung had troubled the minds and thoughts of all, lest by mortal error they should perhaps consecrate the gibbet of the thief instead of the Cross of the Lord. They then took the plan of bringing someone recently dead near the crosses.

Without delay, as if by God's will, the body of one who had died was being carried out with the solemn rites of a funeral, and with the crowding of everyone the body was snatched from the bier. Two crosses having first been applied in vain, when it was touched by the gibbet of Christ—wondrous to tell!—while all trembled, the corpse was shaken off, and stood among its onlookers. The Cross was found, and consecrated with fitting devotion.

By these things done through Helena, with a Christian prince, the world had received liberty and an example of faith: but a far more terrible danger was generated for all the churches by that very peace. For then the Arian heresy burst forth, and had disturbed the whole world with the error it brought in. For with the two Arii, the most bitter authors of this perfidy, even the emperor was corrupted: and while he seemed to himself to be fulfilling a duty of religion, he exercised the force of persecution: bishops were driven into exile, cruelty was inflicted on clergy, punishment was inflicted upon laymen who had separated themselves from the communion of the Arians. Now what the Arians preached was of this kind: that the Father, the Lord, for the purpose of founding the world, had begotten the Son: that he, by the Father's power, was made out of nothing into a new and different substance, a new and different Lord: and that there had been a time when the Son did not exist.

Therefore, on account of this evil, a synod was convened at Nicaea from the whole world. Indeed, with three hundred and eighteen bishops assembled, the full faith was set down in writing, the Arian heresy was condemned. The emperor embraced the episcopal decree. The Arians, not daring to retract anything against the sound faith, mingled themselves also with the churches as if acquiescing and holding nothing different: yet there remained implanted in their hearts hatred toward catholic men: and against those with whom they could not dispute concerning the faith, they attacked them with suborned accusers and fabricated charges.

And so first they attacked Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, a jurisconsult, who had been present at the Council of Nicaea as a deacon, and condemned him in his absence. For to the charges which false witnesses had heaped up, they added that he had, with depraved zeal, received back Marcellus and Photinus, heretical priests condemned by the judgment of a synod. But concerning Photinus there was no doubt that he had been justly condemned: in Marcellus nothing then seemed worthy of condemnation; and the greater the zeal of the innocent party had accrued to him, because no one doubted that those same judges by whom he had been condemned were heretics. But the Arians desired to remove not these men rather than Athanasius: and so they pressed the emperor to the point that Athanasius was sent into exile to Gaul. Soon eighty bishops assembled in Egypt pronounced that Athanasius had been unjustly condemned.

The matter was referred to Constantine; he ordered bishops to be assembled from the whole world at Sardica, and every judgment by which Athanasius had been condemned to be reconsidered. Meanwhile Constantine died: the synod, assembled now under the reign of Constantius, absolved Athanasius; Marcellus too was restored to his bishopric. For concerning Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, the sentence was not rescinded, because he was proven a heretic even in the judgment of our own people. And yet this very thing weighed against Marcellus, because Photinus seemed to have been his hearer in his youth. Nevertheless, to the absolution of Athanasius this also was added, that Ursacius and Valens, chief leaders of the Arians, when after the Council of Sardica they seemed to be cut off from communion, having been set before Julius, bishop of the city of Rome, begged pardon, for having condemned an innocent man: and confessed that he was rightly absolved by the sentence of the Council of Sardica.

Then, after an interval of time, Athanasius, when he had thoroughly discovered that Marcellus was of insufficiently sound faith, suspended him from communion, and Marcellus had this much modesty, that being marked by the judgment of so great a man, he yielded of his own accord. But he who had before seemed innocent, and afterward proved depraved, could now seem to have already been guilty at the time when judgment had been passed concerning him. The Arians, therefore, having found an occasion of this kind, conspired to overturn utterly the decrees of the Council of Sardica: for a certain pretext seemed to be available to them, in that it had been judged as unjustly in favor of Athanasius, as Marcellus had been absolved, who now even by Athanasius's own judgment was proven to be a heretic. For Marcellus had emerged as an assertor of the Sabellian heresy: but Photinus had already before put forth a new heresy, differing from Sabellius indeed in the matter of Unity, but preaching the beginning of Christ from Mary.

Therefore the Arians, by cunning design, mingled the innocent with the guilty, and comprised the condemnation of Photinus and Marcellus and Athanasius in the same sentence: doubtless building this beforehand in the minds of the emperors, that they should not be thought to have judged wrongly concerning Athanasius, who had held true opinions concerning Marcellus and Photinus. Nevertheless at that time the Arians concealed their perfidy: not daring openly to preach the dogmas of their error, they conducted themselves as catholics, thinking nothing should be done by them sooner than to remove Athanasius from the Church, who had always stood in their way like a wall: with him removed, they hoped the rest would give way to their license. But that part of the bishops who followed Arius accepted the desired condemnation of Athanasius: a part, compelled by fear and factional pressure, had gone over to partisan zeal.

A few, to whom the faith was dear and truth more precious, did not accept the unjust judgment: among whom Paulinus, bishop of Trier, when the letter was offered to him, is reported to have written thus, that he gave his consent to the condemnation of Photinus and Marcellus, but did not approve concerning Athanasius.

Then indeed the Arians, when their guile had had too little success, resolved to act by force: for it was easy for them to dare and do whatever they pleased, supported as they were by the friendship of the king, whom they had bound to themselves by base flatteries. Nay, by the agreement of many, they were unassailable: for almost all the bishops of the two Pannonias, and many of the Orientals, and all Asia, had conspired in their perfidy. But the leaders of that evil faction were held to be: Ursacius from Singidunum, Valens from Mursa, Theodorus from Heraclea, Stephen of Antioch, Acacius from Caesarea, Menophantus of Ephesus, George of Laodicea, Narcissus from Neronopolis. These had so taken possession of the palace that the emperor did nothing without their nod: he was indeed indebted to all of them, but devoted especially to Valens.

For at the time when battle was fought against Magnentius near Mursa, Constantius, not daring to descend into the sight of the fighting, took up quarters in the basilica of the Martyrs situated outside the town, having taken Valens, then bishop of that place, to comfort him. But Valens had cunningly arranged through his own men that, whatever the outcome of the battle should be, he would be the first to know it: either seeking the king's favor, if he should be first to bring good news; or providing for his own life, seizing in advance an opportunity for flight, if anything should happen to the contrary. And so, while the few who were around the king were trembling with fear and the emperor was anxious, he was the first to announce that the enemy were fleeing. When the emperor demanded that the informant himself be brought in, Valens, so as to add to his own reverence, replied that an angel had been his messenger.

The emperor, being easy to believe, afterward was accustomed to say openly that he had conquered by the merits of Valens, not by the valor of his army.

Enticed by this beginning, the Arians raised their spirits, intending to use the power of the king where they had had too little success by their own authority. Therefore, since our people would not accept the sentence which they had given concerning Athanasius, an edict was proposed by the emperor, that whoever did not subscribe to the condemnation of Athanasius should be driven into exile. Meanwhile there were councils of our bishops at Arles and Béziers, towns of Gaul. It was requested that, before they were forced to subscribe against Athanasius, they should rather dispute concerning the faith: and that only then should the matter be examined, when judgment had been settled concerning the person. But Valens and his associates wished first to extort the condemnation of Athanasius, not daring to contend concerning the faith: from this conflict of parties Paulinus was driven into exile. Meanwhile a meeting was held at Milan, where the emperor was then present. The same contention yielded nothing on either side. Then Eusebius of Vercelli and Lucifer from Cagliari in Sardinia, bishops, were exiled.

But Dionysius, bishop of Milan, subscribed his consent to the condemnation of Athanasius, provided that inquiry concerning the faith should be made among the bishops. But Valens and Ursacius and the rest, fearing the people, who preserved the catholic faith with remarkable zeal, not daring to profess their impieties, gathered together within the palace. From there they sent out a letter under the emperor's name, filled with every depravity; with this design indeed, that if the people should receive it with fair ears, they might publicly bring forward, with public authority, what they desired; but if it were otherwise received, all the odium should fall upon the king, and be itself excusable: because, being still at that time a catechumen, he might rightly seem to have been able not to know the mystery of the faith. Therefore, when the letter was read in the church, the people rejected it. Dionysius, because he had not assented, was driven from the city: and immediately a bishop was substituted in his place.

Liberius too, bishop of the city of Rome, and Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, were given over to exile. Rhodanius also, bishop of Toulouse (who, being of a gentler nature, had not yielded to the Arians so much by his own strength as by association with Hilary), was involved in the same fate: although men were ready to suspend Athanasius from communion, provided only that inquiry concerning the faith should be made among the bishops, yet it seemed best to the Arians to remove the most outstanding men from the contest. Thus those whom we have mentioned above were driven into exile, forty-five years ago now, in the consulship of Arbitio and Lollianus; but Liberius was restored to the City a little later on account of the Roman seditions. As for the rest, it is well established that the exiles were celebrated everywhere throughout the whole world with zealous devotion, that money was abundantly gathered for their expenses, and that they were visited also by embassies of the catholic people from almost all the provinces.

Meanwhile the Arians no longer secretly, as before, but openly and publicly proclaimed the impieties of their heresy: nay, even interpreting the Council of Nicaea in their own favor, which they had corrupted by the addition of a single letter, they had cast a kind of darkness over the truth: for where "homoousion" had been written, that is, "of one substance," they said that "homoiousion" had been written, that is, "of like substance": granting a likeness while taking away unity, since likeness differs greatly from unity; as, for example, a painting of a human body would be like a man, and yet would not possess the reality of a man. But some of these went further, affirming "anhomoiousian," that is, "unlike substance," and matters had proceeded so far in these contentions that the whole world was entangled in impieties of this sort. For Italy, Illyricum, and the East had been infected by Valens and Ursacius and the rest, whose names we have set down. Our Gauls were oppressed by Saturninus, bishop of Arles, a violent and factious man.

It was also the opinion that Hosius, from Spain, had lapsed into the same perfidy: which seems the more wonderful and incredible, because for almost the whole of his life he had been most steadfast on our side, and the Council of Nicaea was held to have been accomplished under his authorship: unless, his age failing—for he was more than a hundred years old, as St. Hilary relates in his letters—he had lost his wits. With these things throwing the world into confusion, and the Churches languishing with a kind of sickness, a somewhat more sluggish, but no less grave, care exercised the emperor: because, although the Arians whom he favored seemed to have the upper hand, still no agreement concerning the faith had yet been reached among the bishops.

Therefore he orders a council to be assembled at Rimini, a city of Italy: and he commands the prefect Taurus not to dismiss those gathered into one place before they should agree upon a single faith, promising him the consulship if he brought the matter to effect. Thus, officials of the Master of Offices being sent through Illyricum, Italy, Africa, Spain, and Gaul, more than four hundred Western bishops, summoned or compelled, assembled at Rimini: to all of whom the emperor had ordered rations and provisions to be given. But this seemed unbecoming to our people (that is, the Aquitanians), the Gauls, and the Britons: rejecting the fiscal allowance, they preferred to live at their own expense. Only three from Britain, for lack of their own means, made use of the public allowance, having refused the collection offered by the others, thinking it more proper to burden the treasury than individuals. This I have heard our bishop Gavidius relate, as it were disparagingly.

But I would judge quite otherwise: I count it to the credit of the bishops that they were so poor that they had nothing of their own, and took rather from others than from the treasury, where they burdened no one. Thus in both there is an excellent example: of the rest, nothing worthy of memory has been handed down. But I return to the order of events. After all, as we said above, had been gathered into one, a separation of the parties took place: our people occupied the church; the Arians took, in the meantime, a building deliberately left vacant, in place of an oratory, but these were no more than eighty: the rest belonged to our party. Therefore, in frequent councils nothing was accomplished, our men remaining in the faith, they not yielding from their perfidy. At last it was resolved to send ten legates to the emperor, that he might know what was the faith and judgment of the parties, and that he might know that peace with heretics was not possible.

The Arians did the same, and sent an equal number of legates, who might contend against ours in the presence of the emperor. But on our side young men were chosen, little learned and little cautious: whereas from the Arians there were sent shrewd old men, strong in wit, imbued with the poison of perfidy, who easily proved superior before the king; but our men had been charged in no way to enter into communion with the Arians, and to reserve everything intact for the full synod.

Meanwhile in the East, following the example of the West, the emperor orders almost all the bishops to be gathered together at Seleucia, a town of Isauria, at which time Hilary, now spending his fourth year of exile in Phrygia, was compelled, among the rest of the bishops, by a vicar and by the president, a permit for travel having been given, to be present. Although the emperor had given no special command concerning him, the judges merely following the general order, by which all bishops were commanded to be gathered to the council (wishing, as I conjecture, to mix him in among the rest as well). It was so brought about by God's will, that a man most fully instructed in divine matters should be present when there was to be a dispute concerning the faith.

When he came to Seleucia, received with great favor, he had turned the minds and zeal of all toward himself; and first it was asked of him what was the faith of the Gauls: because at that time the Arians, spreading false reports about us, we were held in suspicion by the Orientals, as though we believed in the threefold union of a solitary God according to Sabellius. But having set forth his own faith, in accordance with what had been written by the Fathers at Nicaea, he bore witness on behalf of the Westerners. Thus the minds of all being set at rest, he was received into the fellowship of communion within their conscience, and admitted also into the council. Then business began to be conducted: and the authors of the wicked heresy were discovered and torn away from the body of the Church. In that number were George of Alexandria, Acacius, Eudoxius, Uranius, Leontius, Theodosius, Evagrius, Theodulus. But the synod being concluded, a legation was decreed to inform the emperor of what had been done.

The condemned also set out to the king, trusting sufficiently in the strength of their allies and the favor of the Prince.

Meanwhile the emperor compels the legates of the council of Rimini, on our side, to unite with the communion of the heretics, and hands over to them a formula of faith drawn up by wicked men, wrapped in deceptive words, which spoke the catholic doctrine while perfidy lay hidden within; for the word "ousia," as though ambiguous and rashly employed by the fathers, and not derived from the authority of Scriptures, he was abolishing under the appearance of a false rationale, lest the Son be believed to be of one substance with the Father. This same formula confessed the Son to be like the Father; but within lay hidden a prepared fraud, that he should be like, not equal. Thus, the legates being dismissed, it was commanded to the prefect that he should not release the synod before all should profess by their subscriptions their assent to the formula of faith drawn up; and that, if any should resist more stubbornly, provided their number were within fifteen, they should be driven into exile.

But when the legates returned, though they begged for mercy from the royal force, communion was refused them. Indeed, when what had been decreed became known, there was greater confusion of affairs and counsels: then gradually most of our men, overcome partly by weakness of mind, partly by weariness of their sojourn, gave themselves over to the adversaries, who were now, after the return of the legates, superior, and, our men having been thrust out from there, held the church; and once the inclination of minds had turned, they went over in droves to the other side, until the number of our men was reduced to as few as twenty.

But the fewer these were, the stronger they were: and the most steadfast among them was held to be our Phoebadius, and Servatius, bishop of the Tungri. These men, because they had not yielded to threats and intimidations, Taurus approached with entreaties, and weeping besought them to take the milder course: the bishops, shut up within one city, were now spending the seventh month; worn out by the harshness of winter and by want, no hope of return was given them; what, then, would be the end? Let them follow the example of the majority: let them at least draw authority from numbers. Whereupon Phoebadius professed himself ready for exile and for every punishment to which he might be condemned: that he would not accept the faith conceived by the Arians. Thus in this contest several days were spent. When they were making too little progress toward peace, he too gradually began to weaken, and at last was won over by a condition that was proposed.

For Valens and Ursacius affirmed that the present formula of faith had been drawn up according to catholic reasoning, and had been put forward by the emperor's authority on behalf of the Orientals, and was rejected with sacrilege; and what would be the end of the discords, if what had pleased the Orientals should displease the Westerners? Finally, if anything seemed to have been set forth less fully in the present formula, let them themselves add whatever they thought should be added: they would give their consent to whatever was added in these matters. This favorable profession was received with the ready assent of all minds, nor did our men dare to resist further, being now eager in every way to bring the matter to an end. Then the professions drawn up by Phoebadius and Servatius began to be published, in which first Arius is condemned, and the whole of his perfidy: but it is also pronounced that the Son of God is not equal to the Father, and without beginning, and without time.

Then Valens, as though assisting our side, added a clause in which a hidden deceit lay: that the Son of God was not a creature like the other creatures; and the fraud of the profession deceived the hearers. For by these words, by which the Son was denied to be like the other creatures, he was nevertheless pronounced to be a creature, only superior to the rest. Thus neither party could think itself entirely victorious, or think itself conquered: because the formula itself was in favor of the Arians, but the professions added afterward were in favor of ours, except for that clause which Valens had added, which was not understood at the time, and was only recognized too late. In this manner the council was dismissed, having begun well, but ending in a foul conclusion.

Therefore the Arians, matters flowing far too prosperously and according to their wishes, hasten together to the emperor at Constantinople. There, having found the envoys of the synod of Seleucia, they compel them by royal force to accept, after the example of the Westerners, that depraved faith: most, refusing, being harassed by injurious confinement and hunger, surrendered their captive conscience; many, holding out more steadfastly, having their bishoprics taken from them, were thrust into exile, and others were put in their place. Thus, with the best priests either terrified by fear or led off into exile, all had yielded to the perfidy of a few. Hilary was then present there, having followed the envoys from Seleucia, awaiting, with no definite instructions concerning himself, the emperor's will, in case he should perhaps be ordered to return to exile.

When he perceived that the faith was in extreme danger—the Westerners deceived, the Easterners being overcome through wickedness—having publicly presented three petitions, he demanded audience of the king, that he might dispute concerning the faith in the presence of his adversaries. This indeed the Arians refused most strenuously; and at last, as though a seed-bed of discord and a disturber of the East, he was ordered to return to Gaul without the granting of exile. But when he had traversed almost the whole world infected with the evil of perfidy, wavering in mind and seething under a great mass of cares, since it seemed to most that communion should not be entered into with those who had accepted the synod of Ariminum, he judged it the best course to recall all to correction and penitence; and through frequent councils held within Gaul, and with almost all the bishops professing their error, he condemned what had been done at Ariminum, and restored the faith of the churches to its former state.

Saturninus, bishop of Arles, a man truly most wicked and of evil and depraved character, resisted these sound counsels; but he, besides the infamy of heresy, being convicted of many unspeakable crimes as well, was cast out of the Church: thus the strength of the factions was broken with the loss of its leader. Paternus also, of Périgueux, equally senseless, and not refusing to profess perfidy, was driven from the priesthood, pardon being granted to the rest. This was agreed upon by all, that by the merit of Hilary alone our Gauls were freed from the guilt of heresy. Lucifer, however, then at Antioch, held a far different opinion: for he condemned those who had been at Ariminum to such a degree that he even separated himself from the communion of those who had received them back under satisfaction or penance. Whether he decided this rightly or wrongly, I would not dare to say. Paulinus and Rhodanius died in Phrygia. Hilary died in his own country in the sixth year after he had returned.

There follow times of our own age, grievous and dangerous, in which the Churches were defiled by an unaccustomed evil and all things were thrown into confusion. For then for the first time that infamous heresy of the Gnostics was detected within Spain, a destructive superstition, concealed by secret mysteries. The origin of this evil is the East and Egypt. But by what beginnings it came together there, it is not easy to explain. Marcus first brought it into Spain, having set out from Egypt, born at Memphis. His hearers were a certain Agape, a woman not without renown, and the rhetorician Elpidius. By these Priscillian was instructed, a man of noble family, exceedingly rich in wealth, keen, restless, eloquent, learned by much reading, most ready at discoursing and disputing: happy indeed, had he not corrupted an excellent talent by depraved zeal.

In him one could truly discern many good qualities of mind and body: he could keep long vigils, could endure hunger and thirst; he had scarcely any desire for possessions, and was most sparing in his use of them. But he was also most vain, and puffed up more than was right with knowledge of profane matters; indeed it is believed that he had practiced magic arts from his youth. When he had taken up this destructive teaching, by the authority of his persuasion and the art of his flattery he drew into association with himself many of the nobles and more of the common people. To this end, women eager for novelties, of fickle faith, and of a curiosity that ran to everything, flocked to him in crowds: for, presenting a show of humility in countenance and dress, he had cast over all a sense of reverence and respect for himself.

And now gradually the taint of this perfidy had spread through the greater part of Spain: indeed some of the bishops too were corrupted; among whom Instantius and Salvianus had taken up Priscillian not merely by agreement but under a kind of conspiracy: until Hyginus, bishop of Córdoba, acting from a neighboring district, reported what he had learned to Idacius, priest of Mérida. But he, without measure, and beyond what was fitting, harassing Instantius and his associates, applied a sort of torch to the rising conflagration, so that he exasperated the wicked rather than suppressed them.

Therefore, after many contests between them worthy of record, a synod was assembled at Saragossa, at which even the bishops of Aquitaine were then present. But the heretics did not dare to submit themselves to judgment: sentence was then passed against them in their absence, and Instantius and Salvianus, bishops, and Elpidius and Priscillian, laymen, were condemned. It was added also that, if anyone should receive the condemned into communion, he should know that the same sentence would be passed against himself. And this task was given to Ithacius, bishop of Sossuba, that he should bring the decree of the bishops to the notice of all, and especially that he should exclude Hyginus from communion; for he, who had first of all begun openly to pursue the heretics, had afterward been shamefully corrupted and had received them into communion.

Meanwhile Instantius and Salvianus, condemned by the judgment of the bishops, together with Priscillian—though a layman, yet the chief of all the wrongdoers, likewise marked by the synod of Saragossa—in order to strengthen their forces, appointed him bishop in the town of Ávila: reckoning, no doubt, that if they armed a keen and cunning man with priestly authority, they would be safer. Then indeed Idacius and Ithacius pressed on more sharply, thinking that the evil could be crushed in its beginnings; but with counsels not sufficiently sound they approached the secular judges, so that by their decrees and executions the heretics might be driven from the cities. Therefore, after many foul contests, at Idacius's entreaty a rescript was obtained from Gratian, then emperor, by which all heretics were ordered to be driven out, not only from the churches or cities, but from all lands entirely. When this became known, the Gnostics, distrusting their own affairs and not daring to contend at law, those who seemed to be bishops withdrew of their own accord: fear scattered the rest.

Then Instantius, Salvianus, and Priscillian set out for Rome, to clear themselves of the charges laid against them before Damasus, at that time bishop of the City; but their route took them through inner Aquitaine, where, being then magnificently received by the unlearned, they scattered the seeds of perfidy, and above all perverted the people of Eauze, then indeed of good character and devoted to religion, by their depraved preachings. Repelled from Bordeaux by Delphinus, they nevertheless lingered for some time on the estate of Euchrotia, and infected not a few with their errors. Then, setting out on their journey, in a truly shameful and disgraceful company, along with their wives and even other men's women, among whom was Euchrotia and her daughter Procula—concerning whom it was in men's talk that, having become pregnant by Priscillian's fornication, she had procured abortion for herself by means of herbs. When these came to Rome, wishing to clear themselves before Damasus, they were not even admitted into his presence. Returning to Milan, they found Ambrose equally opposed to them.

Then they changed their plans, so that—since they had made no headway with the two bishops who at that time held the highest authority—they might extort by bribery and canvassing what they desired from the emperor. Thus, having corrupted Macedonius, then master of offices, they obtained a rescript by which, the earlier decrees being trampled underfoot, they were ordered to be restored to the churches. Relying on this, Instantius and Priscillian returned to Spain (for Salvianus had died in the city), and then, without any contest, recovered the churches over which they had presided.

But it was not the will, but the means, that failed Ithacius to resist: for the heretics, having corrupted the proconsul Volventius, had strengthened their forces. Indeed Ithacius, accused by them as a disturber of the Churches and prosecuted as a defendant, and ordered to be led off for a harsh execution of judgment, fled in fear to Gaul. There he went to the prefect Gregory; who, having learned what had been done, ordered the authors of the disturbances to be seized and brought to him, and reported everything to the emperor, so as to close off the way of canvassing to the heretics. But this was in vain, because through the license and power of a few, everything there was for sale.

Therefore the heretics, by their own arts, having given a large sum of money to Macedonius, obtained that, by imperial authority, the inquiry into Spanish affairs should be taken from the prefect and given to the vicar (for they had by now ceased to have a proconsul) [lacuna]; and officials were sent by the master of offices to drag Ithacius, then residing at Trier, back to Spain; whom he cunningly evaded; and afterward, defended by Britannius the bishop, he made mock of them. By now a rumor had arisen that Clemens Maximus had assumed imperial power within Britain, and would soon burst into Gaul. So Ithacius then resolved, though matters were uncertain, to await the coming of the new emperor: meanwhile he would take no action himself. So when Maximus entered the town of Trier as victor, Ithacius poured out petitions full of odium and accusation against Priscillian and his associates.

Moved by these, the emperor, having sent letters to the prefect of Gaul and to the vicar of Spain, ordered that all whom that taint had involved should be brought to the synod of Bordeaux. Thus Instantius and Priscillian were brought there: of whom Instantius, ordered to plead his case first, after he had failed to clear himself sufficiently, was pronounced unworthy of the episcopate. Priscillian, however, so as not to be heard by the bishops, appealed to the emperor; and this was permitted through the inconsistency of our own men, who ought either to have pronounced sentence against him as a recusant, or, if they themselves were held suspect, to have reserved the hearing for other bishops, rather than hand over to the emperor a case concerning crimes so manifest. Thus all whom the case involved were brought before the king.

There followed also as accusers the bishops Idacius and Ithacius: whose zeal in overthrowing the heretics I would not blame, had they not contended with more eagerness for victory than was fitting. And indeed it is my own opinion that both the accused and the accusers displease me. Certainly I judge that Ithacius held nothing of weight, nothing of sanctity: for he was bold, talkative, shameless, extravagant, devoting a great deal to belly and gullet. He had proceeded so far in folly that he charged even all holy men, who either had a zeal for reading or a purpose of contending by fasts, as though they were associates or disciples of Priscillian.

The wretch even dared, at that time, to charge openly with the infamy of heresy Martin the bishop, a man plainly to be compared with the Apostles: for Martin, then residing at Trier, did not cease to rebuke Ithacius, that he should desist from the accusation; to beseech Maximus, that he should refrain from the blood of the unfortunate; that it was more than enough that heretics, judged by episcopal sentence, should be driven from the churches; that it was a new and unheard-of wickedness for a judge of the world to judge a cause of the Church. Finally, as long as Martin was at Trier, the inquiry was deferred; and, about to depart, by his outstanding authority he obtained from Maximus a promise that nothing bloody would be decreed against the accused.

But afterward the emperor, corrupted by the bishops Magnus and Rufus, and turned aside from milder counsels, entrusted the case to the prefect Evodius, a keen and severe man, who, having heard Priscillian in a double hearing, and having convicted him of sorcery—Priscillian not denying that he had devoted himself to obscene doctrines, and had held nocturnal gatherings of shameless women, and had been accustomed to pray naked—pronounced him guilty, and remanded him to custody, until he should refer the matter to the emperor. The proceedings having been brought to the palace, the emperor decreed that Priscillian and his associates ought to be condemned to death.

But Ithacius, seeing how odious it would be for him among the bishops if he had stood as accuser even at these final judgments concerning capital matters (for the trial had to be repeated), withdrew himself from the inquiry: in vain, since the crafty crime had already been accomplished. But then, through Maximus, a certain Patricius, an advocate of the treasury, was appointed as accuser: with him pressing the matter, Priscillian was condemned to death, and along with him Felicissimus and Armenius, who, having recently been clerics among the Catholics, had ceased to be so upon following Priscillian. Latronianus also and Euchrotia were slain by the sword. Instantius, whom we said above had been condemned by the bishops, was deported to the island of Scilly, which lies beyond Britain. Then proceedings were carried on against the rest in subsequent trials, and Asarinus and Aurelius the deacon were condemned to the sword. Tiberianus, his goods confiscated, was sent to the island of Scilly.

Tertullus, Potamius, and John, as being of lesser standing and worthy of mercy, because before the inquiry they had betrayed themselves and their associates, were relegated to temporary exile within Gaul. In this fashion, more or less, men most unworthy of the light were, by a most evil precedent, put to death or punished with exiles: a thing which, defended at first by the rule of law and by outstanding public service, Ithacius, having grown accustomed to it in quarrels, at last, when convicted, turned back upon those by whose mandate and counsel he had accomplished it—being, however, the only one of all to be thrust from the episcopate: for Idacius, though less guilty, had of his own accord resigned the episcopate—a wise and modest act, had he not afterward attempted to reclaim the office he had lost.

But with Priscillian slain, the heresy which had broken out under his leadership was not only not suppressed, but was confirmed and spread more widely: for his followers, who had before honored him as a saint, afterward began to venerate him as a martyr. The bodies of the slain were carried back to Spain, and their funerals were celebrated with great ceremony. Indeed, to swear by Priscillian was thought the height of religion. And among our own people a perpetual war of discord had blazed up, which, now agitated for fifteen years by foul dissensions, could in no way be quieted. And now, when all things were seen to be most disturbed and confounded by the discords of the bishops, and all was corrupted through them by hatred or favor, fear, inconsistency, envy, faction, lust, avarice, arrogance, sloth, and idleness: at last the many, against the few who counseled well, contended with insane designs and obstinate zeal: amid all this, the people of God and every excellent man were held up to reproach and mockery.