Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Religion
Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
f. The learned presbyter =Pamphilus= of Cæsarea, the friend
of Eusebius (§ 47, 2) and founder of a theological seminary
and the celebrated library of Cæsarea, who died as a martyr
under Maximinus, belongs to this group. His Old Testament
Commentaries have been lost. In prison he finished his work
in five books which he undertook jointly with Eusebius, the
Apology for Origen, to which Eusebius independently added a
sixth book. Only the first book is preserved in Rufinus’
Latin translation.
§ 31.7. =Greek-speaking Church Teachers in other Quarters.=
a. =Hegesippus= wrote his five books Ὑπομνήματα, about A.D. 180,
during the age of the Roman bishop Eleutherus. From his
knowledge of the Hebrew language, literature and traditions
Eusebius concludes that he was a Jew by birth. He himself
says distinctly that in A.D. 155 during the time of bishop
Anicetus he was staying in Rome, and that on his way thither
he visited Corinth. The opinion formerly current that
his Hypomnemata consisted of a collection of historical
traditions from the time of the Apostles down to the age of
the writer, and so might be called a sort of Church History,
arose from the historical character of the contents of eight
quotations made from this treatise by Eusebius in his own
Church History. It is, however, not borne out by the fact
that what Hegesippus tells in his detailed narrative of the
end of James the Just (§ 16, 3) occurs, not in the first
or second but in the fifth and last book of his treatise.
Moreover, among writers against the heretics or Gnostics,
Eusebius enumerates in the first place one Hegesippus,
having it would seem his Hypomnemata in view. From this
circumstance, in conjunction with everything else quoted
from and told about him by Eusebius, we may with great
probability conclude that the purpose of his writing was
to confute the heresies of his age. In doing so he traces
them partly to Gentile sources, but partly and mainly to
pre-Christian Jewish heresies, seven of which are enumerated.
He treats in the first three books of the so-called Gnostics
and their relations to heathenism and false Judaism. Then in
the fourth book he discusses the heretical Apocrypha and, as
contrasted with them, the orthodox ecclesiastical writings,
mentioning among them expressly the Epistle of Clemens
[Clement] Romanus [of Rome] to the Corinthians. Finally,
in the fifth book, he proves from the Apostolic succession
of the leaders of the church, the unity and truth of
ecclesiastically transmitted doctrine. The historical value
of his writing, owing to the confusion and want of critical
power shown in the instances referred to, cannot be placed
very high.
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