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Simon Peter, son of John from the village of Bethsaida in Galilee, brother of the Apostle Andrew, was a bishop of the Antiochian church and preached the word of God to believers in spiritual purification in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. In the second year of Claudius's reign, he went to Rome to expose Simon Magus; subsequently held a priestly post in this city for twenty-five years until the last, fourteenth year of the reign of Nero. Peter is considered the first among the apostles. He was awarded the crown of martyrdom: he was nailed to the cross upside down, for he claimed that he was not worthy to be crucified in the same way as his Lord. He wrote two epistles, called conciliar epistles. He is credited with the authorship of the Gospel of Mark, who was his student and interpreter. On the other hand, the books, one of which is called his Acts, another - the Gospel, the third - Sermons, the fourth - Revelations, the fifth - Judgments, are considered apocryphal. He was buried in the Vatican and revered throughout the world. Jacob, the brother of the Lord, called the Righteous. Some think that he was Joseph's son by another wife; I believe that he is the son of Mary, the sister of the mother of our Lord, whom John mentions in his book. Immediately after the Passion of the Lord, he was ordained by the apostles to the rank of Bishop of Jerusalem. He wrote an epistle that is considered one of the seven councils, but even this is attributed by some to someone else and is considered only to have been published under the name of James and acquired authority over time. Hegesippus, who lived almost at the time of the apostles, in the fifth book of his Commentaries writes about James: “After the apostles, James, the brother of the Lord, called the Righteous, was made the head of the Jerusalem church. Many were called Jacob. This one was a saint from birth. He did not drink wine or strong drink, did not eat meat, never cut his hair, did not wash himself or anoint himself with anything. He alone had the privilege of entering the sanctuary, since he truly did not wear woolen clothes, but only linen clothes, he entered the church alone and prayed for the people; it was believed that his knees had the hardness of a camel’s knees.” He talks about other things too numerous to mention here. Josephus, in his 20th book of Antiquities, and Clement, in the 7th of his Essays, relate that after the death of Fetus, who ruled in Judea, Nero sent Albinus as his successor, but while he was reaching his province, the high priest Ananias, the son of the priest Ananus, taking advantage of the absence of legal authority, convened a council and publicly tried to force James to admit that Christ was not the Son of God. When Jacob resisted, Ananias ordered him to be stoned. Thrown from the roof of the church, with broken legs, half-dead, raising his hands to the sky, Jacob said: “Lord, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” and after being hit on the head with a club, he died. The same Joseph reports that Jacob was a man of such holiness and good reputation among people that his death is considered the cause of the fall of Jerusalem. It is about him that the Apostle Paul writes to the Galatians: “I saw no other of the apostles except James the brother of the Lord” - and immediately after the event, the Acts of the Apostles provide evidence of this. Also in the Gospel called the Gospel of the Hebrews, which I have recently translated into Greek and Latin and which Origen often uses, after the story of the Resurrection of the Savior it says: “But the Lord, having given his shroud to the priest, appeared before Jacob” (since Jacob vowed complete fasting until he saw the Risen One with his own eyes) - and again a little later it says: “Prepare table and bread - said the Lord” - and immediately after this: “And he brought bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to Jacob the Righteous, and said to him: “My brother, eat of this bread, for the Son of Man has risen.” James ruled the church of Jerusalem for thirty years, that is, until the seventh year of the reign of Nero. He was buried near the church from which he was thrown. His tombstone with the inscription was widely known until the reign of Titus and the end of the reign of Hadrian. Some authors believe that Jacob is buried on the Mount of Olives, but this is a mistake. The Apostle Matthew, also nicknamed Levi, who was formerly a publican, compiled the Gospel of Christ in the name of the spiritual purification of believers. It was first published in Judea in Hebrew, and was subsequently translated into Greek by an unknown person. The Hebrew edition has survived to this day in the Caesarea Library, which Pamphilus so diligently collected. I also had the opportunity to receive a book that was described to me by a Nazarene from the Syrian city of Beria who used it. It is to be observed that wherever this evangelist, either himself or on behalf of our Lord Savior, quotes the evidence of the Old Testament, he follows not the authority of the translators of the Centuagint, but the Hebrew Testament. Therefore, for him there are these two forms: “Out of Egypt I called My Son” and “that He shall be called a Nazarene.” Judas, the brother of James, left a small epistle, which was included in the series of seven councils, but since it quotes the apocryphal book of Enoch, it is rejected by many. Nevertheless, due to its age and usefulness, it became authoritative and became one of the sacred texts. Paul, formerly called Saul, an apostle who was not one of the twelve, came from the family of Benjamin from the city of Giskalis in Judea. After the city was captured by the Romans, the parents took the boy with them to the Cilician city of Tara. Sent to Jerusalem to study the law [of Moses], he studied under Gamaliel, a very enlightened man whom Luke mentions. After participating in the murder of the martyr Stephen, Saul, having secured a letter from the high priest, went to Damascus to persecute Christians there, but on the way there, miraculously, as described in the Acts of the Apostles, he was converted to the faith and from a persecutor was transformed into the chosen one of God. Since the first who believed in his preaching and converted to the Christian faith was the proconsul of Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, he took his name and, after Barnabas joined him, went through many cities and returned to Jerusalem, where Peter, James and John made him an apostle to the pagans. The full account of the life of Paul is given in the Acts of the Apostles, but I will only say that twenty-five years after the Passion of the Lord, that is, in the second year of the reign of Nero, at the time when Fetus, the procurator of Judea, ruled after Felix, he was sent to Rome, where he was left under supervision for two years. There he argued daily with the Jews about the coming of Christ. It should be said that at first, when Nero's power was not yet established, and his vice had not yet manifested itself to such an extent as is described in history, Nero released Paul and the Gospel of Christ could be preached in the West. As he himself writes in Second Epistle to Timothy: “When I first answered, no one was with me, but everyone left me. May it not be imputed to them! The Lord appeared to me and strengthened me, so that through me the gospel might be established and all the pagans would hear; and I was delivered from the jaws of the lion,” clearly meaning the cruel Nero by the lion. And immediately after this: “The Lord delivered me from the jaws of the lion,” and again briefly: “And the Lord will deliver me from every evil deed and save me for His Heavenly Kingdom.” Because Paul truly felt inwardly that his martyrdom was approaching, in the same letter he proclaimed: “For I am already becoming a sacrifice, and the time of my departure has come.” In the fourteenth year of Nero's reign, on the same day as Peter's execution, Paul was beheaded in Rome in the name of Christ and buried near the city of Ostia twenty-seven years after the Passion of the Lord. He wrote nine epistles to seven churches: to the Romans - one, to the Corinthians - two, to the Galatians - one, to the Ephesians - one, to the Philippians - one, to the Colossians - one, to the Thessalonians - two, and, in addition, to his disciples: Timothy - two, Titus - one, Philemon - one. The Epistle to the Hebrews is not thought to be his, and, from a difference of style and language, is attributed by Tertullian to Barnabas, and by others to Luke the Evangelist, or to Clement, afterwards bishop of the church at Rome, who is said to have ordered and embellished Paul's ideas in his own language, but it must be taken into account that since Paul was addressing the Jews who did not respect him, he may not have given his name. He was a Jew and fluent in his native Hebrew language, and his vividly written works could be translated evocatively into Greek, which may be the reason why this epistle differs from Paul's other epistles. Some also believe that he wrote the letter to the Laodiceans, but this is rejected by most. Barnabas from Cyprus, also called Joseph the Levite, ordained an apostle along with Paul, wrote one valuable epistle for his instructions to the church, which is considered an apocryphal work. Subsequently they parted with Paul because of John, the disciple, also called Mark. They performed equally well the task entrusted to them of spreading the Gospel. Luke, a physician from Antioch, as can be seen from his writings, was skilled in the Greek language. Author of the Gospel, follower of the Apostle Paul and his companion on all his journeys. Paul said about him: “We also sent a brother who is praised in all the churches for his gospel” (to the Corinthians), “Luke, the beloved physician, greets you” (to the Colossians), “Luke alone is with me” (to Timothy). Another excellent work written by Luke is the Acts of the Apostles; this is a story relating to the second year of Paul's stay in Rome, that is, the fourth year of the reign of Nero, from which we conclude that the book was composed in that city. Consequently, the Acts of Paul and Thekla, the legend of the baptism of the lion should be considered apocryphal, for it is impossible that the inseparable companion of the apostle did not know about these events. Moreover, Tertullian, who lived at that time, mentions a certain presbyter in Asia, a follower of the Apostle Paul, who was condemned by John for composing these stories, and recognizing that he did it in the name of love for Paul, resigned his position as presbyter. Some believe that when Paul says in his epistle, “According to my gospel,” he means the book of Luke, and that Luke knew the history of the Gospel not only from Paul, who was not with the Lord in the flesh, but also from the other apostles. He also speaks of this at the beginning of his work: “As they who from the very beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word handed it down to us.” Thus, he wrote the Gospel based on what he heard from others, but he created the Acts of the Apostles based on what he himself saw. The remains of Luke rest in Constantinople, where they were transported along with the remains of the Apostle Andrew in the twentieth year of the reign of Constantine. Mark, a disciple and interpreter of Peter, wrote a short Gospel at the request of the Roman brotherhood, reproducing in it everything that he heard from Peter. As Clement, in the sixth book of his Brief Explanations, and Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, report, Peter approved of this work and declared that the Gospel should be read in the churches. Peter also mentions Mark in his First Epistle, metaphorically calling Rome Babylon: “The church chosen like you in Babylon greets you, and Mark my son.” So, taking the Gospel compiled by himself, Mark went to Egypt and, preaching Christianity in Alexandria, founded a church remarkable for its doctrines and way of life, which instructed its adherents to follow the example of Christ. The highly enlightened Jew Philo, having seen the first church of Alexandria, still Jewish in status, wrote a book about the lifestyle of its parishioners, telling, according to Luke, how much it had in common with Jerusalem. Mark died in the eighth year of Nero's reign and was buried in Alexandria, and Annianus took his place. John, the apostle most beloved by Jesus, the son of Zebedee and brother of the Apostle James, whom Herod beheaded after the Passion of the Lord, wrote the Gospel later than all the other evangelists at the request of the bishops of Asia, who fought against Cerinthos and other heretics, and especially against the teaching of the Ebionites, which was gaining strength at that time, who claimed that Christ did not exist before Mary. Therefore, John was asked to speak in defense of Divine birth. However, there was another reason: having read the works of Matthew, Mark and Luke, John approved of the content of the narratives and confirmed that they reported the truth, but described events that occurred within one year after the imprisonment of John [the Baptist] and his execution, and he himself spoke about the earlier period preceding John's imprisonment, so that it may be a revelation to those who diligently read the works of the evangelists. Moreover, this consideration removes the contradictions that seemed to exist between the text of John and others. He also wrote an epistle beginning with the words: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, about the Word of life,” and is revered by all people close to the church or sciences. They say that the other two, the first of which begins with the words “The Elder to the chosen lady and her children,” and the second “The Elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I truly love,” belong to John the Prester, in whose memory a crypt is still shown in Ephesus, and some even think that there are two memorials to John the Evangelist. We will talk about this in turn when we come to Papias, his disciple. In the fourteenth year after Nero, Domitian began the second persecution of Christians. John was exiled to the island of Patmos and wrote the Apocalypse there, which was later commented on by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. But after the death of Domitian and the repeal of his cruel decrees, John returned to the city of Ephesus and, remaining there until the arrival of Emperor Trajan, contributed in every possible way to the construction of churches throughout Asia. He died of old age in 68 after the Passion of the Lord and was buried near Ephesus. Hermas, whom the Apostle Paul mentions in his Epistle to the Romans: "Greet Phlegon, Hermas, Patrov, Hermias, and the other brothers with them", is believed to be the author of a book called "The Shepherd", which is also publicly read in some churches in Greece. This is a truly useful book, and was an authoritative source for many ancient authors, but is almost unknown among the Latins. Philo the Jew of Alexandria, from a priestly family, is placed by us among church authors on the basis that, when creating a work on the first church of Mark the Evangelist in Alexandria, he wrote that there were such churches in many provinces, and called them monasteries. It follows from this that the church of the early Christians was what the monks want it to be now: they had no personal property, none of them was rich or poor, church property was distributed to the poor, and therefore they could devote sufficient time to prayers, psalms, as well as to the Teaching and asceticism. They say that under Gaius Caligula, Philo ventured to Rome as an envoy of his people and, on his second visit to Claudius, spoke in that city with the Apostle Peter, greatly valued this friendship and therefore honored the followers of Mark, the disciples of Peter in Alexandria, with his praise. He left behind many well-known works: “On the Five Books of Moses”, “On the Confusion of Languages”, “On Nature and Inventions”, “On the Things That Our Senses Desire and We Do Not Love”, “On Teaching”, “On the Inheritance of Divine Things”, “On the Separation of Similarities and Opposites”, “On the Three Virtues”; a book about why in the Holy Scriptures the names of many people are changed, “On the life of a wise man”, “On giants”, two books about covenants, five books about the fact that dreams are sent by God, five books “On questions and answers to the Exodus”, four books about the monastery and the ten commandments, as well as books about sacrifices and promises or curses, “On Providence”, “On the Jews”, “On the way of life”, “On Alexander”, “On the intelligence of animals”, a book about that every fool should be a slave, books about the life of the Christians we mentioned above, that is, about the life of the apostles, about those who lived according to the precepts of Christ, because truly they thought about Divine things and always prayed to God; and works of a different nature, two of them on agriculture and two on drunkenness. There are other monuments of his genius that have come down to us. The Greeks have a saying “Either Plato philonized, or Philo platonized,” that is, either Plato followed Philo, or Philo followed Plato, their ideas and language are so similar. Lucius Annaeus Seneca from Cordoba, a student of the Stoic Sotion, uncle of the poet Lucan, was a very temperate man. I would not place him in the category of saints if the letters of Paul to Seneca and Seneca to Paul, read by many, did not force me to do so. In these letters, written at the time when Seneca was Nero's mentor and a highly influential man, he says that he would like to take the same place among his fellow citizens as Paul did among the Christians. Seneca was forced to commit suicide by Nero two years before Peter and Paul were awarded the crown of martyrdom. Joseph, son of Matthew, a priest of Jerusalem, was taken prisoner by Vespasian and his son Titus, and then expelled. Arriving in Rome, he presented the emperors, father and son, with seven books about the life of the Jews in captivity. The books were placed in a public library, and their author was awarded a statue in Rome in recognition of his talent. He also wrote twenty books of Antiquities, from the beginning of the world to the fourteenth year of the reign of Domitian, and two works On the Antiquity of the Jewish People, or Against Appion, the Alexandrian philosopher, who in the time of Caligula was sent as a delegate of the pagans against Philo and wrote a book containing vicious attacks on the Jews. Another book of Josephus is called “On the Wisdom that Rules All,” which describes with great reverence the martyrdom of the Maccabees. In the eighth book of Antiquities, he openly admits that Christ was killed by the Pharisees, who were afraid of the greatness of his miracles, that John the Baptist was a true prophet, and that the cause of the destruction of Jerusalem was the murder of the Apostle James. He wrote about the Lord as follows: “At this very time there lived Jesus, a sage, a man, if indeed it is lawful to call him a man, for he performed amazing miracles and was a teacher of those who strove for the truth. He had many followers who believed that he was the Christ, both among Jews and Gentiles. Because of the envy of our leaders, Pilate crucified him, but those who loved him remained faithful to him to the end, and on the third day he appeared before them alive. Many different miracles can be found in the songs of the prophets who predicted his coming, and Christianity, named after him, exists to this day. Justus of Tiberias in Galilee also attempted to write a history of the Jews and brief commentaries on the Holy Scriptures, but Joseph accuses him of lying. It is known that he worked at the same time as Joseph. Clement, of whom the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians says: “with Clement and with the rest of my fellow servants, whose names are in the book of life,” was the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter, if in fact the second was Linus, and the third Anacletus, although many Latins think that Clement was second after the apostles. He wrote on behalf of the Roman Church a very valuable epistle to the Church of the Corinthians, which in some places is read publicly and, as it seems to me, corresponds in style to the Epistle to the Hebrews attributed to Paul, but differs from this epistle not only in many ideas, but also in the order of words, and the similarity in other respects is not great. There is also a second epistle under his name, which is refuted by earlier authors, as well as a “Dispute between Peter and Appion”, recorded in detail, and Eusebius, in the third book of the “History of the Church,” denies the authorship of Clement. Clement died in the third year of Trajan's reign, and the church built in Rome preserves his memory to this day. Ignatius, the third bishop of the Antiochian church after the Apostle Peter, was sent to Rome and, having reached Smyrna, where Polycarp, a disciple of John, was bishop, he wrote one letter to the Ephesians, another to the Magnesians, a third to the Trallians, a fourth to the Romans, and leaving there, he wrote to the Philadelphians, to the inhabitants of Smyrna and to Polycarp, entrusting him with the church Antioch. In the last letter he gave the testimony of the Gospel, which I have recently translated, concerning the person of Christ: “I have actually seen Him in the flesh after the Resurrection, and I believe that He exists,” and also the words of Christ who came to Peter and to those who were with Peter: “Behold My hands and My feet, it is I Myself; touch Me and look at Me; for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” Moreover, if we have already mentioned this man and his letter to the Romans, it is worth citing a few quotes: “From Syria to Rome I give myself, my children, I know what is predestined for me. Now I will be a disciple and will not desire any of the visible things that I may draw near to Christ. Let there be fire and a cross, and let the beasts pounce on me, let them pull out my bones, cut off my limbs, destroy my entire body, let me experience the devil’s torment, let all this happen to me, if only I could achieve the joy that is in Christ.” In the eleventh year of Trajan's reign, Ignatius was sentenced to be torn to pieces by wild animals. Hearing the roar of the lions, he, who always ardently strived for martyrdom, said: “I am the grain of Christ. I have been ground by the tusks of wild animals, so that I can be considered the bread of the world.” His remains were buried in Antioch in the cemetery behind the Daphnian Gate. Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John, whom he appointed Bishop of Smyrna, was the leader of all Asia. He studied with some of the apostles and with those who saw the Lord. During the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius, due to issues related to the celebration of the Jewish Passover, he went to Rome, where the church was headed by Anicetus. There he brought back to faith many who had succumbed to the convictions of Marcion and Valentine, and when Marcion accidentally met him and asked: “Do you know us?”, he replied: “I know the firstborn of the devil.” Later, during the reign of Marcus Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus, during the fourth persecution of Christians after Nero, in Smyrna, by decision of a court administered by the proconsul, it was burned. He wrote a very valuable letter to the Philippians, which is still read during congregational meetings in Asia. Papias, a disciple of John, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia, wrote only five works, which he called “Interpretation of the Words of the Lord,” in which, after stating in the preface that he did not follow various opinions, but relied only on the apostles, he said: “I thought about what Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, Matthew and other disciples of the Lord said, what Aristion and John the Elder said, for I believed that it would be more useful for me to take something not so much from books as from a living and incessant voice. From this list of names it is revealed that John, placed in the row of disciples, is not the elder John whom he places in his list after Aristion. According to many, the last two epistles of John are the work not of an apostle, but of an elder. He is said to have written the book The Second Coming of Our Lord, or the Millennial Reign of Christ. Irenaeus and Apollinaris and others who say that after the Resurrection the Lord in the flesh will reign together with the saints follow the same thing. Tertullian, in his work on the hope of believers, as well as Victorinus and Lactantius, adhere to the same point of view. After Publius, the bishop of Athens, was crowned with the crown of martyrdom in the name of faith in Christ, the disciple of the apostles Quadratus took his place and with his faith and hard work united the church, divided by great fear. When Hadrian spent the winter in Athens to participate in the Eleusinian Mysteries and was initiated into almost all the secret mysteries of Greece, the persecutors of Christians took the opportunity to attack the believers. At this time, Square presented Hadrian with a work created in defense of our religion, indispensable, full of sound arguments and faith, and worthy of the apostolic teachings. In it, describing the events of that time, he says that he saw many who, depressed by various diseases, were healed by the Lord from Judea, and also those who were resurrected. You might be interested in: