ON ST. JOSEPH, COUNT AND CONFESSOR,
AT SCYTHOPOLIS IN PALESTINE.
ABOUT THE YEAR 356 OR A LITTLE LATER.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Joseph, Count and Confessor, at Scythopolis in Palestine (St.)
BY J. P.
§ I. His fatherland, his profession of life in Judaism; the patriarchs and apostles of the Jews.
Tiberias, a city of Palestine in the province of Galilee, on the shore of the lake of Gennesaret, situated by Cellarius on the southern, but by Baudrand and the modern Gallic Legendist, to be cited hereafter, on the western side, to St. Joseph
the count fell as his fatherland, Tiberias, a city of Palestine. the witness being St. Epiphanius, by whom he is called Tiberiadensis in the history, to be given below by us from him at number 1. Of the founder of that city Flavius Josephus thus speaks, Jewish Antiquities, book 18, chapter 13: "Herod moreover the tetrarch, received into the friendship of Tiberius, called the city founded by him Tiberias after his name, the best land of Galilee being chosen for this on the shore of the Gennesaretic lake… This was inhabited partly by immigrants, partly by Galileans, some of whom were compelled to migrate thither; some also of the nobility chose seats for themselves there: and that the population might be greater, there were received to dwell even the meanest, flowing together from every quarter, and among these some, whom it is not sufficiently established to be free.
[2] "These, having bestowed on them great immunities and benefits, it was the fatherland of St. Joseph; he bound to inhabit; granting to some houses, to others fields, that they might the less shrink from the city built contrary to the ancestral rite on ground filled with many sepulchers: since according to our laws he is held impure for seven days who dwells in such places." Further, whether Tiberias was then founded from the foundations, or rather restored and repaired from an old town, we leave to be discussed by others, to whom it more closely pertains. Meanwhile St. Jerome on chapter 48 of Ezekiel, verse 21, says: "Tiberias was formerly called Chenereth." But the memory of Tiberias is ennobled in the sacred Letters, as appears from chapters 6 and 21 of John, verse 1; and also the same chapter 6, verse 23. Let these few things suffice for the notion of the fatherland of St. Joseph. Concerning his profession of life we subjoin these.
[3] He professed the Jewish superstition of the paternal traditions, as the inveterate custom of that perfidious and hardened sect bears, his profession of life was Judaism joined with the highest dignity. so obstinately tenacious that, although by plainly singular, manifest, and repeated aids of divine mercy he was strongly and sweetly called from his inveterate pertinacity to the faith of Christ; yet he never seriously suffered himself to be called away from his once-conceived obstinacy; often convinced, often deliberating, and sometimes even promising better things; yet nonetheless still going on to resist, until at last, conquered, he gave up his hands to God calling him, as will be said below on occasion of his conversion. And indeed that he excelled above the common of the Jews and his contemporaries in the institute of his sect, and perhaps also in the splendor of his birth, is argued by the highest dignity with which he shone among his own. For this very Joseph, the same St. Epiphanius witnessing, "was of the order of those who among the Jews hold the chief place of dignity, whom indeed they name apostles, next after the patriarch. These sit by the patriarch; and are often with him day and night: because they are his counselors, and report to him of those things which seem to pertain to the law."
[4] The dignity of the patriarch and of the apostles And since we have fallen upon the discourse of the dignity of the patriarch and apostles among the Jews, it pleases to elucidate it in a few more words, that it may be better understood. Our Dionysius Petavius published the Works of St. Epiphanius in two tomes in the year 1622 at Paris, and added his Animadversions upon them in tome 2; but among those which he has on the heresy 30, which is that of the Ebionites, from page 55, he rightly explains those titles of dignity in these words: "The dignities and appellations both of patriarchs and of apostles among the Jews seem not to have been used except after the destruction of the City. Of the patriarchs in the Theodosian Code, book 16, title 8, there is frequent mention. And indeed the apostles are called as it were the assessors of the patriarch, from the common and usual meaning of the word, because they were sent by him to exact monies from the synagogues, as appears from the Theodosian Code, law 14 on the Jews. And thus it sounds: 'It is of unworthy superstition, that the archisynagogues, or presbyters of the Jews, or those whom they themselves call apostles, who are sent by the patriarch at a fixed time to exact gold and silver, should carry back to the same the sum exacted and received from the several synagogues.'
[5] "'Concerning which matter, whatever we trust, the reckoning of the time being considered, to have been collected, such as it was among the Jews let it be faithfully directed to our treasury. But for the rest we decree nothing to be sent to the aforesaid.'" That concerning the same patriarchs which Epiphanius indicates, that they obtained the dignity not by choice, but by succession of race, and were mostly corrupted by luxury and delights, is confirmed by the authority of Jerome; who in his Commentaries on chapter 3 of Isaiah, on these words: "And the effeminate shall rule over them," thus writes: "Let us consider the patriarchs of the Jews, and the young men or boys, effeminate and abounding in delights, and we shall see the prophecy fulfilled." Further, concerning that hereditary succession St. Epiphanius, below in the history of our St. Joseph, at number 10, thus has it: "Meanwhile, the son of the patriarch Ellel being now a youth, an orphan, who was being educated for the hope of the patriarchate: for no magistracy among the Jews is seized beforehand, but the sons succeed the parents," etc.
[6] Baronius at the year 327, number 18, says: "These things which Epiphanius hands down concerning the names of the magistrates of the Jews agree well may have been. with the rescripts of the emperor Constantine, laws 2 and 3 (nay 4) on the Jews in the Theodosian Code, by which he indulges to them privileges, in which are expressed these names of their magistrates, patriarch, presbyters, hieros, archisynagogues." And from the passage of the Theodosian Code alleged above, recording the apostles, he aptly indicates that they, besides that they are sent by the patriarch at a fixed time to exact gold and silver, were also inquisitors and moderators of morals among the Jews; as you may see at the year of Christ 32, number 5, and as appears from those things which below are related of St. Joseph, whose history also Baronius there cites. But it can here be asked by curious investigators of antiquity, at what time that patriarchal dignity first began among the Jews, and so the office of the apostles, whether before the overthrow of the city of Jerusalem, or indeed, as it seemed above to Petavius, after it. This controversy, so far as it is in us, let us elucidate a little, if we cannot altogether settle it on solid foundations.
[7] Tillemont, in the collection of the history of the conversion of St. Joseph the count, There is a discussion concerning those patriarchs which he exhibits inserted in his Ecclesiastical Monuments, tome 7, page 290, on occasion of the patriarch Ellel or Hillel, who, as in the history which we produce below, had drawn his origin from the stock of Gamaliel, "who held the patriarchate among them. Whom also we may deservedly suspect, as it is handed down by most, to have been begotten of the race of that first Gamaliel, who at the passion of Christ the Lord was the author of that counsel to the Jews, that they should abstain from persecuting the Apostles"; on that occasion, I say, he asserts that Epiphanius seems to express that that Gamaliel, from whom Ellel drew his origin, first possessed this dignity. But we can by no means hammer this out from the words of Epiphanius just adduced. Let us therefore consider whether and what from another passage of Tillemont we can make out for our matter. That is held in his notes upon St. Gamaliel, tome 2 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 469, where he thus observes:
[8] "There is much discourse," he says, "among the Rabbis concerning Gamaliel, by origin whom they will have to have been the head of all the other synagogues from about the year 20 of the vulgar era, up to 52. They give him a son named Simeon, father of another and second Gamaliel; who was the first patriarch of the Jews (as Paul Pezron says he seems, in the Defense of the antiquity of time, published in French at Paris in the year 1692), and of all the others succeeding him in the paternal line up to the year 420." He adds that the praised Pezron judges it cannot be doubted that the first Gamaliel is St. Gamaliel, of whom there is discourse in the Acts of the Apostles; and the time certainly agrees. But it is there asked in Tillemont whether he had a son Simeon; but it does not seem to him that it can be believed that he had other sons than Abibas, who was baptized with him, and Sedemias or Selemias, who remained in Judaism: it must therefore be said that Selemias was Simon (but those names have little affinity with one another) and, as he adds a little after, Selemias could have been of two names, like many other Jews. But what most makes against the principate of the first Gamaliel over all the other synagogues, is this, that it does not seem it can be understood in what manner St. Gamaliel so conducted himself that, with his faith and conscience safe, he remained head of the Jewish synagogues for twenty years after the death of Christ. So he.
[9] and succession. Let us say that that succession, as it is circulated by the Rabbis, of little faith here, because in many other things wont to be deceived or to deceive, is destitute of a fit foundation, so that from it may be made out that Simeon, son of St. Gamaliel, was father of another Gamaliel, first patriarch of the Jews, as they will have it; whom Ellel succeeded, who, that order of succession being admitted, ought to have been the second patriarch; and therefore that the epoch which is thence sought, of the patriarchate begun among the Jews, is plainly uncertain. It must therefore be sought elsewhere. Petavius, as we saw a little before, judges that it must be fixed only after the destruction of the City. Gothofredus, to be mentioned below, page 230, says: "I admit that, as those of patriarchs and the like, so also the appellations of apostles were used among the Jews only after the destruction of the City." Nor indeed does a more fitting time seem able to be accommodated to us for the aforesaid epoch than if we affix it to about the end of the first century of Christ or the beginning of the second: so indeed that it be not placed before the ruin of the city of Jerusalem, nor deferred long after it. But while here we are destitute of written tables of antiquity, let us use conjectures.
[10] We said therefore that these dignities did not begin before the overthrow of Jerusalem. [They seem to have begun to be instituted at the end of the 1st century, or the beginning of the 2nd.] For who before that even by a word records an author of them? Neither Josephus, nor anyone else, spoke of the patriarchs, says Tillemont in tome 1 of the history of the Emperors, page 590; where he curiously collected very many things pertaining to them. And therefore there was also the deepest silence concerning the apostles among the authors before that time. But that already from the time of Hadrian the patriarchs existed, he there adds, in the judgment of some learned men whom he cites. And certainly the end of the first century of the Christian era, or the beginning of the second, seem to us by far most fitting for establishing their beginning. For, having received through the overthrow of Jerusalem the fatal blow of an irreparable destruction, and their sacrifices, rites, and ceremonies being overthrown together with the destroyed temple, if you except a very few, having afterward obtained a little space of breathing, they may have begun seriously to think of erecting some form of state, so to speak, or monarchy, of which the prince should be the patriarch of whom we treat, who, the Roman emperors conniving at it, prevailed among them with so great authority that, like a king, he seemed to hold the sum of affairs. See Tillemont just cited.
[11] Jacques Gothofredus, in the Theodosian Code published by him and illustrated with perpetual Commentaries, Very many notices concerning them tome 6, title 8, book 18, from page 215, laboriously collected very many things concerning the said patriarchs, which here I contract into a compendium, to be seen more diffusely in him by one to whom it will concern; for many things about them are mentioned under this title, and indeed by several laws, from which he confirms his assertions concerning them. 1. There was therefore not one kind of patriarchs, but some superior to others, others on the contrary subject to the dominion of others, etc.: likewise there was of these patriarchs a certain district or tract of land. 2. The great dignity of the greater patriarchs flourished under the Christian emperors, as is established from the titles with which they were honored. 3. The synagogues obeyed the arbitrament of those patriarchs, and there were constituted by them the primates of the Jewish law: for under their dominion were the archisynagogues, that is, the minor patriarchs and the other presbyters, and they obeyed his missions; and finally by these were appointed those who should preside over the rest. 4. They had assessors or apostles, of whom we spoke above. 5. At a fixed time these patriarchs exacted from the several synagogues a certain sum by an anniversary payment, under the name of the Crown-gold (concerning which the same author treats fully in the Commentary on Law 14, page 229), even in the Western parts, although they themselves were in the Eastern.
[12] 6. The patriarchs were in Palestine alone, not elsewhere in the East, here contracted into a compendium much less in the West: yet they now and then surveyed the provinces neighboring Palestine, and namely Egypt. 7. There was from the beginning only one patriarch, and universal, and indeed still in the year 399. Yet he adds that there were several patriarchs of the Jews, namely the Babylonian and the Tiberian: on which matter consult Tillemont alleged above, page 591. Of their succession, from Epiphanius, we have already said enough and more before. 9. They wished to seem to be of the tribe of Judah, from Origen, others denying it, namely Cyril and Theodoret, who refer them to the stock of Herod; but Epiphanius to Gamaliel, as we said. 10. Chrysostom, oration 3 against the Jews in the Greek edition of Savile, which is the fourth oration in the Greek-Latin of our Fronto Ducaeus, tome 1, page 504, calls their patriarchs innkeepers, traffickers, full of all iniquity.
[13] From which he presently adds, that those who are now called patriarchs among them are brought forward. are not priests, but by dissimulation play the person of priests, and play no otherwise than actors on the stage, etc. In the Dialogue on the life of St. John Chrysostom, published under the name of Palladius at Paris, it is thus read, page 137: "They say that the pestilent and false patriarch of the Jews each year, or with a year interposed, changes the heads of the synagogue, for scraping together money; and likewise his rival, the patriarch of the Egyptians," etc. Theophilus, unless I am mistaken, is understood; concerning whom see the Patriarchs of Alexandria before tome 5 of June, page 52. And indeed the vices of the patriarchs of the Jews were perhaps the cause why they were abolished; on which matter, under the same title 8, in the last Law, primates being substituted in their place after the passing of the patriarchs, which Law is noted as given in the year 429; so that the patriarchs ceased to be under Theodosius the younger between the year 415 and 429, and indeed nearer to the year 415, on account of the wickedness of Gamaliel then ruling, in vain restrained; which Theodosius did not longer bear, or who passed away immediately after; as it seemed to Gothofredus on this Law.
Notes* hierei (priests)
§ II. The wonderful obstinacy of St. Joseph in Judaism, a miracle then wrought by him; his conversion to the Christian faith; the dignity of count.
We call that obstinacy wonderful, and indeed with the best right: The Saint, by plainly singular and often repeated means for whether on the one part we consider the impulse of the Holy Spirit, which ceased not to call the Saint to better things; or on the other part his repulse, by which he resisted Him calling, we have assuredly on both sides what we may signally marvel at. For the recollection of those things held his mind solicitous which in the baptism of Ellel the patriarch he had seen done, mystical and secret: and what he should do he anxiously thought; as is said in the history of his conversion below at number 8. There was added the reading of the sacred books, on that occasion and in the manner by which it is set forth at number 9: which being read through, again his mind began to be tortured: and to take up the Christian faith indeed seemed grievous to him: but these two things nonetheless, both the reading of the books and the initiation of the patriarch, vehemently distressed the man: who nevertheless remained, as is wont, with hardened mind. The power of the cross also against illusions, number 16, this third proof of the Christian religion Joseph had, whereby he learned that against the name of Christ and the sign of the cross the sorceries availed nothing: nor did he for that reason resolve in his mind to be a Christian. Add the apparition of Christ, number 17. But Joseph, not even thus impelled, acquiesced; but fell into a vehement and desperate sickness.
[14] being called to the faith of Christ, always remained obstinate. Then the Lord again appearing to him, exhorts him to believe in Him; so should he recover his health. When he had promised he would do this, and suddenly recovered, he persisted in the same obstinacy. Wherefore, having fallen a second time into sickness, and equally despaired of; when now the Jews, his kinsmen, believed his last time to be at hand, the sick man heard the mystery which is wont to be done by them in secret. For a certain one of the skilled in the law, advanced in age, approaching, whispered into his ears those words which you have at number 18; but without any success. But whether the Jews used those words as a sign for healing diseases; or whether superstition induced them to imitate and to simulate in appearance what faith persuaded the Christians to perform in circumstances of this kind of things; it is wonderful enough that by Jews utterly unbelieving there were used words which graphically express the chief and most august mysteries of our faith concerning the Savior of the world Jesus, whom those perfidious ones hated worse than a dog and a snake. But indeed the faith of this deed is solidly established from St. Epiphanius, who added these things:
[15] On this occasion a wonderful deed of the Jews is vindicated from falsity, "With all asseveration," he says, "I confirm that Joseph himself narrated these things to me, when he was now converted to Christ. What besides I received from some other," he says, whom he describes at more length there at numbers 18 and 19. "We see," says Tillemont rightly, "no means of doubting the truth of those two histories, brought forward by two Saints; who certainly would not deceive us." He adds besides that he knows not whether there be any room for believing that they could have been deceived, of which a certain Calvinist, he relating it, accuses them, using the ordinary impudence of that sect. For they bring forward only what they themselves heard. It is another thing, further, if St. Epiphanius ought to bring forward that the Jews always said those mystical words to the dying, as Tillemont observes; adding that he does not see room for doubting that at least sometimes they did it. But the text of Epiphanius expressly has τὸ παρ᾽ αὐτῶν ἀεὶ μυστηριωδῶς γενόμενον παρὰ τούτων ἤκουσε. That is: "The mystery which is wont to be done by them in secret the sick man heard," as it is in the version of Petavius, which Tillemont also used. But if we would render that text more closely and word for word, we shall thus interpret it: "What was ALWAYS mystically done by them, he heard from them"; but now if the adverb ἀεὶ affects another adverb joined to it, μυστηριωδῶς (and certainly, why should it not seem able here to affect that, since it is immediately set before it?) then the sense will be far other; which can thus be rendered, or will be equivalent to this: "that which is ALWAYS MYSTICALLY done by them, when it is done, or as often as it is done, he heard from them."
[16] Where you see it is not implied that this is always done by them. and it is explained: But if the word "always" in that proposition immediately affects the copula, then the sense of the proposition will be equivalent to this: "what is by them BOTH DONE ALWAYS, AND indeed MYSTICALLY." There will perhaps be those to whom this exposition seems to be relegated rather to philosophical subtleties than to a historical narration, by St. Epiphanius perhaps by no means intended. Be it so: for historians are wont to speak rather in the vulgar sense, by no means solicitous about subtleties of this kind: but to it the deed somehow compels us, from all its circumstances wonderful above all measure, we would almost say above all belief, unless it were related from the mouth of two witnesses, and one indeed greater than all exception, namely of St. Joseph; which if it be said to have happened sometimes, or in certain circumstances, it will indeed even thus remain altogether wonderful; but the paradox, although by that means it be not altogether taken away, will at least in great part be mitigated. If anything better shall occur to the learned in the present argument, we shall easily concede to them the palm, content to have attempted a certain way, by which perhaps an easier approach in this entangled business to the truth itself may be paved. To these can be added also the notes to the second chapter of the history of the conversion, letter 1.
[17] Tillemont tries to level the difficulty, by recurring partly to the evidence by which the coming of the Messiah is proved to have happened; yet not every difficulty occurring in it is taken away. partly to the profound abyss of darkness, and the hardness of the human heart, an example being produced of Josephus the historian of the Jews; "if the celebrated passage concerning Jesus Christ," he says, "is truly his"; concerning which let the polemical theologians see. But by this the said difficulty is not taken away. But that we may not pursue more such external examples of obduration, when the domestic one of our St. Joseph is at hand, whose adamantine hardness of obstinate mind neither so many frequent and manifest apparitions of Jesus Christ, nor a testimony so singular concerning Christ brought forward even by His most sworn enemies, could by any means soften, much less hammer out of him any confession, tacit or express, of Christ the Savior: for he, St. Epiphanius witnessing at number 20, "when he was still in sickness, and had heard from the elder among other things these… nevertheless hardened his mind. Therefore the Lord… again presents Himself to him in sleep… restoring him to health, bidding him rise, and at last believe." But in vain: for when he recovered, not even then did he believe. Again therefore, his health now recovered, the Lord is presented to him by a vision, and accuses him that he had not yet believed. Then to the apparitions and rebukes are added promises, and now a fourth time the Lord exhibits Himself to be beheld by him.
[18] But that he might be assured of the faith of his religion, [Power is given by Christ that the Saint may work a miracle, by which he may convert himself to the Christian faith;] "if," He says, "thou wilt work any prodigy in my name; invoke me myself: I will grant it to thee." The event answered the promise: for he freed a madman from a demon in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, as St. Epiphanius narrates at more length,
from number 21. Meanwhile nevertheless our Joseph had hardened with inveterate pertinacity, number 23. Further, concerning this miracle wrought by him then, when he still went on always growing filthy in Judaism, it pleases to observe with Baronius at the year of Christ 327, number 31, whose words are these: "Who would marvel that these things were attempted by Joseph, when the Acts of the Apostles (chapter 19) testify that the same were performed by the sons of Sceva, chief of the priests? Although the thing turned out for them not so happily as for Joseph." The deed can be seen at the cited place. But the power of working this miracle, granted to Joseph, most unworthy far and wide on account of the inveterate hardness of his mind, St. Basil perhaps had heard, when in the shorter Rules, at Interrogation 179, he thus answers: "Further, that a gift or bounty of God is bestowed on someone, is not to be marveled at. Since God, in the time of His goodness and patience, makes His sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and that oftentimes to the profit even of him to whom the gift is granted, namely that, if it be possible, revering the goodness of God, he may in some way be incited to strive to be grateful to Him: or of others also; conformably to those words of the Apostle (Philippians 1, verse 15) 'Some indeed even out of envy and contention: but some also out of good will preach Christ.'" But whether and in what manner miracles can be wrought even by the reprobate, will be explained on the 25th of this month in the preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. Magneric, bishop of Trier, §8.
[19] but on another occasion his mind is at last softened and converted. And indeed the fruit just indicated by St. Basil the miracle which he wrought could have produced in St. Joseph, had he been less hard and obstinate. But the good Shepherd at last drew to Himself by punishments that lost sheep, so patiently and long hitherto sought in vain, whom by so many and so unusual favors He had in vain soothed, that it might hear His voice. For the occasion of his serious conversion was given to Joseph by the dignity conferred on him by the patriarch of the Jews, namely that of apostle: which office when he wished to perform accurately, and to reduce to order certain wicked ministers of the same, depriving them also of their dignity, he stirred up among them an implacable hatred against himself. Who catch him in the reading of the Gospels, beat him with rods, seek to kill him, and submerge him in the river Cydnus; where, left for dead, but yet preserved from death, he was afterward immersed in the salutary waters of sacred baptism, and began to live to Christ; according to the things which St. Epiphanius relates at number 23 and following.
[20] He becomes a friend of Constantine the Great, and is by him created count, And so he entered fully into the friendship of the emperor Constantine the Great, who, having heard from him the things which had happened, "conferred on him the reward of dignity… and made him a count, commanding besides that he should ask whatever he wished"; number 26. Petavius mentioned above thus notes concerning that title of honor, page 38: "The dignity of counts was mostly a bare title without magistracy and function, as is established from the Theodosian Code. This Constantine granted to very many, as Eusebius relates. The same was conferred by the prince through honorary codicils: on which matter, on the fourth oration of Themistius, we have disputed at more length." So Petavius; where also more concerning those codicils against an anonymous conjecturer; to whom we refer the curious reader. Concerning the "comitiva," as it is named by the interpreter of Epiphanius, or the dignity of count, Du Cange treats in his Glossary of middle and low Latinity; where he very laboriously collected the various and manifold meaning of that title: but here it seems to be assigned the prefecture of a province or at least of that tract of land in which were situated the cities enumerated by Epiphanius, over which Constantine the Great set St. Joseph at least so far that, fortified by imperial authority both against the machinations of the Jews and of the Arians, he could securely and safely build churches, and perhaps also exercise besides some office of judge or public magistrate, whereby he might strike a greater reverence and observance of himself into the adversaries of the Christian faith and of the meditated work, who seemed likely to oppose themselves.
[21] For he had not only what he might fear for himself from the Jews, whose superstition he had deserted, that he may securely and safely build churches, but he had also most especially the Arians hostile, whom, Epiphanius witnessing at number 5, he traduced with the highest infamy. "For he alone retained the right and sincere faith at Scythopolis, while the rest were Arians. But had he not been endowed with the dignity of count, so that this honor might protect him from the violence of the Arians, that Man would not have remained even in the city itself, especially under Patrophilus," etc. Nor indeed that this title of dignity was in him mere, without substance or power, is argued by that which we have at number 27: "But Joseph, having received the letters with that power (namely of building churches in all the villages and towns of the Jews) and dignity, proceeded to Tiberias, and brought with him also a diploma, by which he might take his expenses from the treasury, since he privately received his stipends from the same." And these things indeed for our purpose be enough. If anyone desires to be more fully instructed concerning the origin or antiquity of the counts, their various orders, and the rest pertaining hither; let him go to Du Cange in the Glossary, Gothofredus in tome 2 in the Commentary on the 13th title of the Theodosian Code, and Tillemont, history of the Emperors, tome 4, from page 285. Let us return further to the conversion of the Saint.
[22] Baronius at the year 327, number 5, believes that Constantine on his occasion published anew in the year 329 a rescript, renewed perhaps to this end by Constantine, which he had made already from the year 315, to condemn to fire the Jews who persecuted those who had chosen to pass from their superstition to the Christian faith. Thus Baronius speaks: "On the occasion, I think, of Joseph, the law against the Jews once passed at Murgillum in Pannonia under the fourth consulship of Constantine and Licinius, afterward at Constantinople to restrain the Jews who were in the East, is found sanctioned again… the same emperor rescribing to Evagrius. See the Theodosian Code, title 8 on the Jews," etc., in Gothofredus, tome 6, page 214; who, commenting on this passage, page 215, says: "There are those who not improbably judge that the same Joseph, of whom he had there just treated, gave to Constantine the cause for passing this law."
[23] But grant that that thought does not seem to have a particular foundation, according to Tillemont in the historical collection of St. Joseph cited above; which he had at another time passed against the Jews, by a law. yet it appears conformable enough to that history; from which we learn that that most pious emperor conferred on Joseph the neophyte great favors of singular benevolence; and that Joseph himself, intent on building a church at Tiberias, sustained the worst vexations from the Jews; so that it could easily happen that he reported them to Constantine, with whom he prevailed most by favor and authority, especially since by those obstacles there was manifestly opposition to the authority with which he had been notably fortified by him for founding churches; and Constantine of his own accord, from elsewhere, wholly burned most zealously for those most religious works. Consult Eusebius in the Life of Constantine, books 2 and 3.
§ III. The church built at Tiberias by the Saint; a certain writing attributed to him; the chronotaxis of his life, the year of death uncertain; the place, of which the Saint's history treats, here elucidated at more length.
Concerning the church built by St. Joseph That various churches were founded by St. Joseph, the power certainly given to him by the emperor Constantine the Great being executed not slothfully, we learn from the history of the conversion toward the end. But concerning the temple among them, the Adrianium at Tiberias, of which there at number 28, we premise a few things by which the reason of that surname can be given and elucidated. Aelius Lampridius, in the Augustan history from the recension of Claudius Salmasius published at Paris in the year 1620, in the Life of Alexander Severus, page 129, says: "He wished to make a temple to Christ, and to receive Him among the gods. Which Hadrian also is reported to have thought, who had ordered temples to be made in all the cities without images; which today for that reason, because they have no deities, are called Hadrian's, which he was said to have prepared for this: but he was hindered by those who, consulting the sacred rites, had found that all would become Christians if that came to pass as wished, and the other temples must be deserted." The author of the notes on the aforesaid history, page 170, will not believe what Lampridius here asserts, because others have not said this; and judges that those temples were ordered to be made, doubtless to be consecrated to the name of Hadrian. "Which Spartianus also," he says, "testifies in his Life."
[25] various things are here discussed; But although he says, page 7, that "making a journey through Asia he consecrated temples of his name," to which passage this author of the notes looked, as may be seen in his notes on Spartianus, page 26; it is plain enough that the assertion of Spartianus does not overthrow the saying of Lampridius, but that both can conveniently be reconciled. And indeed the silence of the other authors, on which the said author of the notes relies, ought it to seem a sufficient reason, and solidly enough founded, to those who adore Jesus Christ, that they should not believe to be true what His enemies, not without glory to Him, believed to be true? Certainly Lampridius, a gentile author, ought by no means to be suspect here to us, nor therefore to the author of the notes, inasmuch as he was as alien from flattery toward the Christians as from their sacred rites. Salmasius in his notes, page 229, so far from gnawing at that passage, rather supposes it to be true. But whatever be the case of that prediction, whether true or false, by which Hadrian was hindered, etc., God indeed willed the event of it to be true, by not permitting an emperor so wicked to have any part of that glory, which He reserved for the emperor Constantine alone, as the chief ornament of the other praises with which he shone.
[26] as also concerning the writing, which seems wrongly attributed to him. But to return again to St. Joseph; Isaac Vossius, On the Sibylline oracles, published at Oxford in the year 1680, chapter 3, page 18, is cited in Tillemont, in the historical collection often adduced, page 299, as attributing to the Saint a writing named Hypomnesticon, to be found, as is added, in many libraries. But what this writing is, we confess with Tillemont that we do not know. Nor do we sufficiently conceive on what foundation any writing can be attributed to him, of whom we have no other writing, and whose profession of life does not seem to have been fitted for writing. Add that, since that writing is not at hand, that we may be permitted to inspect it, it is unknown to us whether and what characterisms shine in it. Nay it seems to us far more probable that a writing of this kind is not of St. Joseph the count, because St. Epiphanius disclosed nothing of it in those things especially of St. Joseph himself narrating, and also of the time and
of the circumstances of the matter narrated, in which he heard almost his whole life one by one, and indeed toward the end of his life. If to the possessors of that Work anything solid comes to mind, whereby they may vindicate it to St. Joseph, we shall congratulate the discovery for the public good of the learned: but of this good we do not dare to hope even by a shadow. We have more certain things concerning the time in which the Saint lived:
[27] For St. Epiphanius interwove into the history of the conversion some marks of time, by which both the beginnings of the Saint's life, [From the marks of time interspersed in the history of the Saint's conversion by St. Epiphanius,] and its course and end, can probably be arranged; and whence it is permitted to constitute this hypothesis of chronotaxis. His birth we fix to about the year of Christ 286: his conversion from Judaism to about the year 326, of his age 40: for some latitude of an age somehow mature enough seems to be suggested both by the office of guardian which he performed, number 8, and by the peculiar means, often repeated and so often rejected by him, that he might convert himself; and finally by the dignity of the apostolate, conferred on him by Judas the patriarch of the Jews, when he had now advanced to a robust age, number 23. But Constantine the Great, who then from the year 323 reigned in the East (see Tillemont, tome 4 of the history of the Emperors, article 4), he may have met in the same year, or a little after; by whom he was created count in the year 329, of his age 43; in the year 330 he gave his labor to building churches, of his age 44; about which time happened the illusions of the Jews to hinder them, number 29. St. Eusebius of Vercelli, banished into exile, he received with lodging in the year 355, of his age 69. St. Epiphanius turned aside to him, and heard the history of his conversion from his own mouth, in the year 356, when he was already indeed of an infirm age and was in his seventieth year more or less, St. Epiphanius witnessing at number 3.
[28] And indeed that time about there agrees aptly enough with the few minutiae of the same history, the chronotaxis of his life is arranged: in closely reviewing which, on account of the notable lapse of time in which St. Epiphanius had heard it narrated, he speaks in the manner of one opining, and on account of the long interval of time which had passed between the narration and the writing, somewhat distrustful of his memory, as is made plain from the following: "The name of the patriarch was then Ellel (for so I think he was wont to be named also by Joseph, unless memory deceive me on account of the length of time), number 2. Judas, I think, was the name of the patriarch, nor at so great an interval do I well remember, number 10. The patriarch Judas (for so perhaps he was called), number 23. A temple…, which they called, unless I am mistaken, the Adrianium, number 28." That time about there, therefore, to say it again, agrees aptly enough both with the history heard by St. Epiphanius, and with the time in which he committed it to letters: for he wrote On the Heresies in the year 376, and therefore twenty years after he had heard it narrated; as is made out from Heresy 66, chapter 20, page 638 of the Petavian edition; where, enumerating certain emperors, he says: "to this year, which is the thirteenth of Valens, the ninth of Gratian, the first of Valentinian the younger," etc.—but of Christ 376.
[29] but concerning the year of death it is not sufficiently established. But now that St. Joseph departed this life a little after St. Epiphanius turned aside to him, is on one side credible, on another uncertain. Credible, I say, that is, because St. Eusebius of Vercelli, in the epistle to his people, produced by Baronius at the year 356, from number 92, complains that he suffered very many things at Scythopolis from the cruel Patrophilus, most infected with Arian madness: of which complaint perhaps he would not have had a handle, if St. Joseph, his notable in few and powerful advocate and defender, had at that time survived. For this cause Tillemont, page 299, judged it credible that he was then no longer surviving. But he does not seem to have sufficiently weighed the reasons which render that, which from this appears credible, from elsewhere and with equal, if not perhaps greater, likelihood, uncertain. Let Baronius be heard at the cited place, number 91: "Because the Arians prevailed by the authority of the emperor (Constantius), they did not suffer him to tarry with so great a host, whom Patrophilus, torn from Joseph, consigned to dire custody: for both he, and Constantius, and the other Arians took it ill that he whom they had drawn from his own church into exile should be honored in the parish of the Arians with so great an honor, both by the lodging of a Count, and also by the visitation of men of notable fame from various provinces round about." And this reason of the most Eminent founder of the Ecclesiastical Annals appears to us to be preferred to the Tillemontian conjecture; so that it seems must be said, that it is not sufficiently established how long the holy Count survived in the 70th year of his age, of Christ about 356. Castellanus, at the text of his Roman Martyrology on this day, ascribes to the name of St. Joseph "about the year 369"; which if it were true, he would already have been more than an octogenarian: with which we do not assent to Castellanus, until it be proved from elsewhere.
[30] That the Gadarene baths were infamous for illusions, But since of the Gadarene baths mention is made in his history at number 11, and some things concerning that place present themselves to us a little longer than can conveniently be expanded in our notes; it has seemed better to throw them hither; which Baronius also interwove into the history of the conversion of our Saint, narrated in him from St. Epiphanius, at the year 327, seizing a very convenient occasion of relating the following, which Eunapius of Sardis records in the Lives of the philosophers, in Iamblichus, a philosopher of notable fame, coming to the same baths, agreeing with those things which Epiphanius writes concerning the illusions of the devil exercised there. Thus therefore the matter stands: "Some time after it pleased all, at a fixed season of the year, to go to Gadara, which is a place of baths in Syria, holding the second place after Baiae in the Roman empire, with which no warm baths can be compared. There, while he was bathing, and the rest likewise were giving their labor to bathing, a dispute arising about the baths, Iamblichus, smiling, said: 'Although I am hindered by religion from opening these things, yet for your sake it shall be done.' And at the same time he ordered the disciples to inquire of the native inhabitants by what names, already of old, had been endowed two of the warm little founts, smaller, but more elegant and graceful than the rest.
[31] is established from the wonderful "They, after they had done as commanded, denied that they could learn the reason of the names: yet that the one had the name of Eros Love; the other of the god Anteros Requited-Love, avenger of the wrongs of lovers. At once he himself, having touched the water with his hand (for he happened to be sitting on the edge of the fount, where the basin is emptied and overflows), a few little words being murmured, from the depth of the fount raised up a boy, white, of a fitting stature, with hair tinged into tawny gold, with shining skin of the back, who was wholly like one bathing or bathed. His companions being astonished at the novelty of the thing, 'Let us pass,' he said, 'to the next little fount'; and at the same time rising he went before, fixed in thought, and with suspended countenance; and there, performing the same things which before, he called forth another Eros, like the former in all things, except that his hair was blacker, and more ruddy for this one, and scattered over his neck. Both little boys, poured round in close embraces, clung to Iamblichus as to a natural father: whom he immediately restored to their own seats, and, having bathed, departed, the assembly of his companions and familiars being astounded, who from that time ceased to scrutinize anything, and, drawn by the arguments and signs which they had seen as by strong reins, showed themselves in all things credulous.
[32] "There were circulated about him among the common people other things also discordant to belief and monster-like, of which I have willed to commit nothing to writing, which history is here narrated; thinking it little safe, and hateful to God, if anyone should insert into a true history, resting on solid faith, empty, fictitious, and fluid fables. Nay, even these very things I write not without a certain religious scruple, fearing lest they be rumors and feigned hearsays; save that I follow men who, giving no credence to others, were moved by the perception of the thing seen." And these things Baronius admits as true, inasmuch as Eunapius testifies that he received them from Aedesius, among the chief familiars of Iamblichus. And as to what pertains to the time; these things indeed happened at these very near times (in which the illusions related by Epiphanius in the often-mentioned history happened); for (which Suidas also has) Iamblichus flourished under Constantine; and that he came to extreme old age the same Eunapius hands down, as Baronius there observes. But most truly of that infamous stew St. Epiphanius pronounces at number 12: "Whatever places are celebrated for divine prodigies, in them, on the contrary, he (the demon) tried to stretch his destructive nets."
[33] For by the same artifice of the demon was done that which St. Jerome narrates in epistle 49 to Paulinus, the demon striving to profane holy places. of the newest Paris edition of the Works of St. Jerome, tome 4, column 564; which epistle is elsewhere the 13th: "From the times of Hadrian even to the reign of Constantine, for about 180 years, in the place of the resurrection an image of Jupiter; on the rock of the cross a statue of marble of Venus, set up by the gentiles, was worshipped, the authors of the persecution thinking that they would take from us the faith of the resurrection and of the cross, if they polluted the holy places by idols. Our Bethlehem now, and the most august place of the world… a grove of Thamus, that is of Adonis, overshadows; and in the cave where once the infant Christ wailed, the paramour of Venus was bewailed." And indeed you would say that the devil had set before himself a like aim, by rendering the place of which we here treat opportune for amatory allurements and lusts, and disfiguring and profaning it with filth; for it is situated in that field, namely the Gadarene, which is held celebrated by the presence and miracles of Christ the Lord, as from Luke 8 Petavius notes in the Animadversions alleged above.
§ IV. The history of St. Joseph's conversion, on what occasion and with what faith written by St. Epiphanius; other writers of the same; the cult of the Saint, unknown to the Roman Martyrology and other sacred calendars.
The books wont to be preserved and used by the Ebionites On what occasion St. Epiphanius came to commit this history of the conversion to letters, he himself indicates in express words; when, various errors of the Ebionites being related, at last also concerning their books he thus hands down: "And they indeed admit the Gospel according to Matthew, which alone, like the Cerinthians or Merinthians, they use; and that same they call 'according to the Hebrews.' For truly we can affirm that one out of all the writers of the New Testament, Matthew, wove the evangelical history in Hebrew and in Hebrew letters. Nor were there wanting those who affirmed concerning the Gospel of John that it was hidden in Hebrew at Tiberias in the treasuries of the Jews, and in certain more secret inner chambers: which some, who had transferred themselves from Judaism to the faith of Christ, most accurately declared to me.
[35] gave occasion to St. Epiphanius of writing this history. "Nay, that the Acts of the Apostles also, likewise translated into the Hebrew tongue from the Greek, were held in the same treasuries, became widely spread by the report of many: and those who narrated these things to us thence took occasion of embracing the Christian faith. There was of their number
[36] [The faith of St. Joseph's history is conciliated by the authority of St. Epiphanius, who wrote it,] The faith of our history is chiefly conciliated by the authority of St. Epiphanius, in whom both a singular sanctity of life shone, and great erudition joined with candor and sincerity. That we may not, by heaping up more eulogies of the greatest men, draw the matter into a long discourse, it will suffice to taste a few from the eulogies of the ancients, which Petavius prefixes to his Works published by him. St. Jerome, in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers, says: "Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, wrote books against all heresies, and many other things, which are read by the learned for the matter, by the simpler for the words. He survives even today, and in extreme old age forges various works." And in Apology 2 against Rufinus: "Does not detraction everywhere against all suffice thee, unless thou specially direct the lance of thy pen against a blessed and notable priest of the Church? Who is that man, who thinks he has as it were a necessity of evangelizing through all nations and all tongues of speaking ill of Origen: who confessed, a very great multitude of the brethren hearing, that he had read six thousand of his books?" Augustine, in the book On Heresies to Quodvultdeus, thus has it: "Up to these therefore the aforesaid bishop of Cyprus (Epiphanius) carried his work On Heresies, held among the Greeks among the great, and praised by many in the soundness of the Catholic faith." More you will find both there in Petavius, and in us on the twelfth of May, on which his deeds were collected and illustrated.
[37] I know indeed that a greater accuracy concerning things and times, and also a discernment of histories, is desired in him by learned men; who is elsewhere convicted by the learned of lapses; but that as appears from Baronius's Ecclesiastical Annals, tome 3, in various places; from Melchior Cano's Theological Places, book 11, page 477; finally from Petavius in the Animadversions on the heresy 68 of the Meletians, tome 2 cited, from page 273; and there against the heresy of the Arians, 69, page 286; but whether, having elsewhere used false or spurious Acts or histories, he sometimes wrongly handed down false things for true; or whether, more credulous than is right, he gave too much to the lighter little narrations of others; or whether from lack of sufficient discernment he confused things and times; this may hold elsewhere in him; but in our history it can by no means hold. For here he writes nothing but what he drew from the Saint's mouth, and what had happened to the Saint himself, and in the very same manner in which they had happened, sincerely and candidly, without circumlocutions or hyperbolic exaggerations, weaving through the whole series of the whole matter, and that indeed so that, where he could smell out that in certain lighter minutiae a lapse of memory could underlie, on account of the length of the interval which had passed between the time in which he had heard the history narrated, and that in which he consigned it to writing; so indeed, I say, that on that account, distrustful of his memory, in a good many places he so tempered his expressions that he said nothing except what he then well held in memory, and in the very same manner in which it then occurred to his memory.
[38] Nor indeed can it be said that St. Epiphanius here lapsed in memory; does not hold in this history; which Baronius esteemed, for all and each of the things which he narrated he had present to his memory with sufficiently express and vivid traces: for where here and there in circumstances of lighter moment he seems to have wavered, he did not omit to indicate it; of which thing we gave specimens at number 28. Whether therefore you consider the fount of the narration, namely St. Joseph, or the writer of the narration himself, St. Epiphanius, or finally the manner and economy of the narration; all breathe candor, sincerity, and faith. Nay, the very founder of the Ecclesiastical Annals, Baronius, suspect of no flattery toward the writings of St. Epiphanius, inasmuch as he elsewhere most freely castigated him, commended this history with the most certain vote of his approbation: which, when at the year 327 he had interwoven whole into his Annals, he thus applauds its author with the following epiphonema: "Thus far concerning these things Epiphanius: to whom we give thanks, that he commended so notable a history, and one attested with so certain and firm faith, to the monuments of writers for the memory of posterity." But at the year 132, treating of the use of blessed water in the Catholic Church against demons, he confutes the innovating babblers by the example of St. Joseph the count.
[39] Tillemont, by no means to be noted with the fault of excessive credulity in the discernment of histories to be approved, far be it that he should have wished to weaken even a little the truth of this history, since he wished it, as true and genuine, inserted into his Ecclesiastical Monuments; concerning which matter it has been said above. Tillemont and the hypercritical Legendist recognize it as genuine, Following him the modern Gallic hypercritic, otherwise wont boldly and rashly to gnaw at very many things, among the Lives of the Saints on this day, tome 2, from page 351, gave place to the same history; nay in the Critical Table of the authors and Acts of the month of July, page 18, he says: "his history was described in an ample and very accurate manner by St. Epiphanius, who had learned it from his mouth," etc. The same the modern Gallic annalist likewise inserted into his ecclesiastical history. And so from so many arguments hitherto produced for the truth and sincerity of this our history I conclude that the highest and undoubted historical faith is to be given to it; inasmuch as its whole truth rests on the mouth of two witnesses, namely St. Joseph, who narrated the whole matter as his own, such as in truth it was, and St. Epiphanius, who received it from the mouth of Joseph himself narrating; for they are two witnesses greater than all exception, and in whose mouth every word stands.
[40] and it rests on the certain testimonies of St. Epiphanius. And indeed not from ownerless rumors, not from obsolete dreams of triflers, or old-wives' ditties, or from traces obliterated by the long distance of places, times, and persons, did Epiphanius bring forth his history; but with certain and undoubted faith he received the several things, and with the same faith with which he received them transmitted them to posterity, with a memory sufficiently present, though not altogether recent, as appears from what has been said. Let him himself be heard: "But to me these, as I said, all Joseph himself narrated. These, I say, I learned from no other than from his own mouth, when he was already of an infirm age, and was in his seventieth year more or less. To him I had turned aside at Scythopolis," etc., number 3. "For whose visiting when I," he says, "and certain other brethren had come, we were received into the same house. Where, having conversed familiarly with Joseph, and inquired of him what at last had happened to him… and how he had passed from Judaism to the Christians; all these things we learned from him by certain hearing, explored by no alien faith. Which, since we judge them among the first worthy of memory for the profit of the faithful… the things which pertained to that Joseph we wished to pursue more accurately," numbers 4 and 5. "But let us return to the history of the patriarch, and even of Joseph himself; which for the readers' sake we shall represent with accurate faith in the same words in which he related it," number 6. "As Joseph himself most accurately narrated to me," number 13. Hither can be recalled the things which we said above at number 15.
[41] [We find the memory of our St. Joseph nowhere in the calendars except in the Roman Martyrology;] There have been collected hitherto the things which we have thought opportune to illustrate the altogether wonderful conversion of St. Joseph the count to the faith of Christ; but now there remains to be treated an argument most necessary to our purpose and certainly of no small moment, but of such a kind certainly that among all the other things which can be instituted concerning the Saint's affairs it deservedly claims for itself the chief place; namely that which consists in establishing his ancient cult from the sacred calendars. And it happens indeed chiefly wonderful, that nowhere in the world, in any Martyrologies, so far as it has been permitted us to scrutinize, whether they be of the highest or middle or lowest age, is St. Joseph the count found inscribed. There have been consulted copies of every kind, Latin, and Greek likewise both printed and manuscript: recourse has been had also to the tables of other nations; but by a vain effort: for no trace or indication, even by a shadow of that name, has hitherto appeared to us, much less any mention, no more than if nowhere in the world St. Joseph the count had existed in the nature of things. Alone and only among all the sacred calendars, so far as we know, the Roman Martyrology, both published in 1635 and before, expressly expressed his name on this twenty-second day. That of the aforesaid year 1635 thus most briefly: "At Scythopolis in Palestine, of St. Joseph the count." The Basel Martyrology, restored according to the Roman to the new reckoning of the Kalendar, and published by the command of James Christopher bishop of Basel at Freiburg in Breisgau in the year 1584, adds these things: "Who, from a Jew made a Christian, shone by zeal for the Catholic discipline and by miracles." Which doubtless were taken from the first edition of the Roman Martyrology, since they are held in that which appeared in the year 1586; and therefore we plainly judge that what is here said must be reduced to that Roman one, as to their primitive fount.
[42] From what fount therefore the reformers of the Roman Martyrology drew this Saint; taken into it from a fount unknown to us, under what leader and forerunner they honored him with an annual memory there, we candidly profess that this altogether escapes us. Let the same be the judgment concerning the day and month on which he is there announced. Which we understand no more. For concerning his death, add also concerning his cult, or the certain day of the cult, there is the deepest silence in the history of the conversion in St. Epiphanius; besides whom, the one and only who made mention of this Saint, no other occurs. Nor does Baronius settle the matter, by saying in the notes to the Roman Martyrology, "concerning whom the Greeks." For who, I pray, are at last those Greeks; of what age and authority; written by hand, or published in type? Would that he had named even one single one, if he saw any besides St. Epiphanius who wrote the deeds of the Saint; or if Baronius had at hand some other monument, from which it could be established to us of a continued or at least begun cult, with which he at some time enjoyed among the Eastern church; whence it passed to the Western, endowed with the same, the Roman Martyrology leading the way, that is, with the public memory of veneration.
[43] We suspect, by the good leave of the most diligent Parent of the Ecclesiastical Annals, whom Baronius here, as also elsewhere, does not indicate determinately enough. that by this annotation, "concerning whom the Greeks," he perhaps wished to indicate nothing else than that St. Epiphanius treats of him, as one who pursues with the highest praises his conversion, rare indeed and plainly wonderful, and his other virtues. Something similar was observed by us in the Treatise on the Patriarchs of Antioch, which is prefixed to tome 4 of July, concerning a Saint who flourished in the same fourth century as this our one, named Caesarius, father of Eudoxius patriarch of Antioch, the most wicked of all the Arians; which Caesarius is read inscribed as a martyr in the Roman Martyrology on the twenty-eighth of December: to which place Baronius likewise added this not dissimilar annotation, "the Greeks concerning the same." As here, so there too we indicated a desire of seeing those Greeks produced, if he saw any heralds of this martyr Caesarius other than Suidas, whom we then said was the only one referred to by him in the Annals, in the places there cited; and who perhaps drew these things, after his manner, from Philostorgius, the Arian historiographer, as may be gathered from the very epitome of him given by Photius, book 4, chapter 4. But lest we prematurely or too hastily establish anything here, we remit those things elsewhere.
[44] But although we have no indications from the Greeks of a legitimate cult, Let us return rather to our Saint. Tillemont rightly retorts to Baronius that the Greeks on that day, namely the 22nd of July, do not speak of him in the Menaea; and that he is by no means in the Menology of Canisius, that namely which he made public from the version of Cardinal Sirletus; from which Baronius was wont to excerpt the Saints noted in it, and to give them their place also among those who are marked in the Roman one. The modern Gallic legendist, elsewhere strangely critical, but here beyond his custom easy and liberal, says: "the Greek church believed that his memory must be honored with religious cult": but let that severe corrector of others, so often beyond right and good, know that he must be corrected for the levity with which he transcribes those things which he has neither seen proved, nor could himself prove. Yet let no one so take these things said by us, as if we judged that St. Joseph must be expunged from the Roman calendars: (for the place which he holds in it, let him further continue to hold) but we cannot dissemble that we would gladly have seen some certain indications produced of at least some legitimate cult; which above all things must be investigated by us before any Saint, of whom this is not sufficiently established, has a place in our Work. Which because concerning St. Joseph was not sufficiently proved to us, we would have thought, to speak the matter itself candidly, that it was not left to us to give him place there, on account of the fit monuments of public veneration not found; had not one single authority persuaded otherwise.
[45] Yet we here give the Saint, by the example of the Roman Martyrology. For since he is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, we think ourselves sufficiently and more than sufficiently safe, if, that one leading the way, we reckon him into our Work, especially since we know nothing which is contrary to his public cult, however much that be not sufficiently proved to us from elsewhere. There is added that perhaps Baronius somewhere saw something concerning him, even if he did not express it clearly enough. And indeed we by no means doubt that the divine mercy, so profusely rich toward our Saint, wrought a perfect work of conversion in him, and, when he was earnestly intent on the pious structures of churches, and on other notable virtues, and endowed with a public miracle, even then when he still lived, concerning which below at number 30, and at last consummated in peace, called him to itself, about to give him the eternal prize for his serious conversion and profession of the Christian life. It now remains that we subjoin the wonderful history of the conversion, elucidated with notes, where it shall have been fitting.
Notes* wove (texuisse)
HISTORY OF THE CONVERSION,
By St. Epiphanius, contemporary and familiar, of the Panarion or Against Heresies, tome 2, book 1, from page 127 of the Paris edition, published by the care and version of Dionysius Petavius, S.J.
Joseph, Count and Confessor, at Scythopolis in Palestine (St.)
By St. Epiphanius.
CHAPTER I.
St. Joseph the Jew, from the sight of the mysteries of baptism and the reading of sacred Scripture, deliberates concerning the Christian faith, but with no success; the son of the patriarch of the Jews foully corrupted.
There was of their number a certain Joseph, not that ancient writer of history a, but another Tiberian b, who lived in the age of the emperor Constantine the elder of blessed memory c: St. Joseph contemporary with Constantine the Great, and honored among the Jews, from whom also he received the office of count d, with this power, that both in the city of Tiberias itself, and at Diocaesarea e, Capernaum f, and in other neighboring towns, he should build churches in honor of Christ. Who indeed, before he had come to the knowledge of the emperor, suffered very many things from the Jews themselves. For this same Joseph was of the order of those who among the Jews hold the chief place of dignity: whom indeed, next after the patriarch g, they name Apostles h. These sit by the patriarch; and are often with him day and night: because they are his counselors, and report to him of those things which seem to pertain to the law.
[2] The name of the patriarch was then Ellel i [St. Joseph in eager pursuit of that which he had heard, always remained obstinate; for so I think he was wont to be named also by Joseph, unless memory deceive me on account of the length of time]. he summons to their patriarch the bishop of Tiberias, He had drawn his origin from the stock of Gamaliel, who held the patriarchate among them. Whom also we may deservedly suspect, as it is handed down by most, to have been begotten of the race of that first Gamaliel k, who at the passion of Christ the Lord was the author of that counsel to the Jews, that they should abstain from persecuting the Apostles. Ellel, dying, summons the neighboring bishop of Tiberias, and by him, at the exit of his life, under the pretense of medicine, is expiated by the sacred washing.
[3] For, when he had called the bishop through Joseph as a physician l, [that he may impart baptism to him secretly: which matter, as also others to be narrated hereafter,] all being ordered to withdraw, he suppliantly addresses him in these words: "I beseech thee," he says, "impart to me the sign of Christ." Then, the ministers being called, he orders water to be brought, as though he wished to prepare for the ailing patriarch some remedy of the disease from water m. They, ignorant of what he was contriving, do as commanded. Then, feigning modesty, and bidding all to depart, the patriarch was initiated by sacred baptism and the divine mysteries. But to me these, as I said, all Joseph himself narrated. These, I say, I learned from no other than from his own mouth, when he was already of an infirm age, and was in his seventieth year more or less.
[4] [are produced with the highest faith by St. Epiphanius as received from the mouth of St. Joseph.] To him I had turned aside at Scythopolis n, whither he had betaken himself from Tiberias, and there had procured for himself certain splendid buildings. For then Eusebius of Vercelli o, bishop in Italy, ordered by Constantius to be exiled for his integrity of faith, had been received by him with lodging. For whose visiting when I and certain other brethren had come, we were received into the same house. Where, having conversed familiarly with Joseph, and inquired of him what at last had happened to him, because we knew that he had been illustrious among the Jews, or what was the order of the thing done, and how he had passed over to the Christians, all these things we learned from him by certain hearing, explored by no alien faith.
[5] The author assigns the cause of his writing, with a notice of St. Joseph: Which, since we judge them among the first worthy of memory for the profit of the faithful, on account of those books which are kept in the treasuries of the Jews, translated into the Hebrew tongue; the things which pertained to that Joseph we wished to pursue more accurately. For he was not only a Christian, and had received that faith; but he also traduced the Arians with the highest infamy. For he alone retained the right and sincere faith at Scythopolis, while the rest were Arians. But had he not been endowed with the dignity of count, so that this honor might protect him from the violence of the Arians, that Man would not have remained even in the city itself, especially under Patrophilus the Arian bishop [p], who both by riches, and by cruelty, and by familiarity and audacity with the emperor Constantius, prevailed most.
[6] [who enters upon a second marriage, lest he be promoted by the Arians to sacred orders.] In the same city there was also a certain man younger in age, who, brought over from a Jew to Christ, retained the sincere faith; and he, because he by no means dared openly, came to us secretly. But Joseph narrated to us something witty and laughable, nor do I doubt but it is most true. For he said that, his wife being dead, he feared lest, violently carried off by the Arians, he should be made a cleric; for often approaching him blandly, they exhorted him to pass to their faction, and allured him with the hope of a greater advancement: so that, if it were necessary, they would even hold out the episcopate. For fear therefore of these he said that he had entered upon a second marriage [q], whereby he might free himself from that imposition of hands. But let us return to the history of the patriarch, and even of Joseph himself; which for the readers' sake we shall represent with accurate faith in the same words in which he related it.
[7] The said baptism secretly seen by Joseph, "When therefore the patriarch was being initiated by baptism in this manner, I," he said, "peering in furtively through the joint of the door, observed all things which were done by the bishop to the patriarch, and diligently retained them in mind. Where, among other things, the patriarch, holding a certain no small quantity of gold, held it out to the bishop: 'And, for me,' he said, 'make offering. For it is written: By the priests of God all things are bound and loosed on earth, and the same shall be loosed or bound in heaven.' After these things, the doors being opened, and those who were present inquiring concerning the patriarch how he did from that remedy, he answered that he was very well: for what to say he well knew."
[8] "Two or three days after, the bishop coming often under the pretense of a physician, the patriarch departed by a happy exit from this life, [and the reading of sacred Scripture casts upon him a deliberation about embracing the Christian faith;] having first committed to Joseph and to another most honorable man his son of a still most tender age. Wherefore all things were administered by both of them, because the patriarch was still a boy in age and almost an infant, and was educated between their hands. At the same time the recollection of those things which he had seen done, mystical and secret, in the baptism, held Joseph's mind solicitous: and what he should do he anxiously thought. There was there conveniently a certain cell of the Treasury sealed up (for 'gaza' [r] in Hebrew signifies treasure), on account of whose seal, very many suspecting various things concerning that Treasury, Joseph, secretly daring to open it, found no monies, but only books, more excellent than all monies."
[9] "Which while he unrolls, he happened to fall upon that of which it was said, but he remains hardened. the Gospel of John, translated from Greek into Hebrew, together"
"with the Acts of the Apostles. To these he found also the Hebrew genealogy of Matthew. Which being read through, again his mind began to be tortured: and to take up the Christian faith indeed seemed grievous to him: but these two things nonetheless, both the reading of the books and the initiation of the patriarch, vehemently distressed the man. Who nevertheless remained, as is wont, with hardened mind.
[10] "Meanwhile, the son of Ellel being now a youth, an orphan, Meanwhile the son of the patriarch, enticed by the Jews to all abominations, who was being educated for the hope of the patriarchate (for no magistracy among the Jews is seized beforehand, but the sons succeed the parents), as soon as he reached the flower and vigor of his age, certain idle young men of his own age, corrupt in morals, perniciously crept into his familiarity: (Judas, I think, was the name of the patriarch, nor at so great an interval do I well remember) these drew him to various kinds of corruption and crimes—the debaucheries of women, abominable lusts, magic illusions, by which they aided him to fulfill his desires: and by amatory allurements and charms drove noble matrons by a certain force to his embrace."
NOTES.
p You have in Baronius at the year of Christ 325 Patrophilus of Scythopolis among the chieftains of the Arians. Tillemont censures him in the Ecclesiastical Monuments, tome 7, in various places, as may be seen in the index to this tome.
q Whether and how many children he had from those two marriages, we have nowhere found.
r "Gaza" is commonly said to be a Persian word, but used also by the Hebrews, as also by the Latins.
CHAPTER II.
St. Joseph tries in vain to recall the patriarch's son to good; the name and cross of Christ triumph; Joseph nevertheless obstinate in Judaism.
But Joseph, and the other guardian of the orphan, an old man, compelled to follow the boy, indeed bore it very grievously, Joseph, his tutor, busies himself to bring him back to good; and sometimes rebuked him with words, and exhorted him. He much more obeyed his equals: covering his crimes partly by dissembling, partly by denying. For neither did the tutors dare openly to accuse him and publish his crimes, but as if for the sake of instructing, they suggested opportune admonitions. It happened that they set out to Gadara a to the baths b. A frequented market is there celebrated every year: to which, for the sake of bathing, they flow together from every quarter for some days, for the remedy of various diseases, and this is done by the most cunning counsel of the demon.
[12] For whatever places are celebrated for divine prodigies c, but in vain: for, raving with impure love, in them on the contrary he tried to stretch his destructive nets, and there men with women are wont to bathe promiscuously d. And then it happened e there was in the baths a noble woman, of exceeding beauty and comeliness of body: whom the young man, roused by the goad of inveterate lust, fell in love with, and, walking through the basin of the baths f, rubbed his side against the woman's side. She signs herself in the name of Christ g: for she was a Christian: whereby it did not concern her to sin, or to bathe with men. But these things plainly happen to the unskilled and ignorant, on account of the sloth of the teachers, who fortify men of this kind beforehand with no instructions.
[13] But that God might demonstrate His miracles, that youthful patriarch failed in all his efforts, nor obtaining his wish, though he had both sent to her, and solicited her with gifts; but she had both dismissed the messengers contumeliously from herself, and had not yielded to the arts of the shameless lover. Therefore his companions, having learned the grief of the youth, which he had taken from the vehement love of the woman, prepare certain more powerful illusions, as Joseph himself most accurately narrated to me. For after sunset they bring the unhappy boy to the neighboring tombs. For there are sepulchers, which are called Polyandria h, namely caverns cut in the rocks.
[14] Whither when they had brought him, they perform certain magic songs and imprecations, he turns his mind to magic illusions; and arts most full of impiety, for the youth's sake, the name of the woman being also conceived. Meanwhile by divine nod it came to pass that these things came into the mind of the other old man, who was with Joseph. Who, the matter being known, communicates all with Joseph. And first, deploring his own calamity, "O we, brother, wretched," he says, "and lost vessels! To what set are we placed as guardians?" Joseph, having inquired what the matter was, learned nothing from him first by words, before the old man, taking him by the hand, led him out into that place where that wicked band had met with the youth among the tombs of the dead, for the sake of the sorcery.
[15] but to no purpose; Therefore they, standing outside at the entrance, heard all things which were done by them, and, as those departed, withdrew themselves. For it was not yet growing very late in the evening: but, as being toward sunset, in the doubtful light something could still be discerned by the eyes. Presently, those wicked men having departed from the sepulcher, Joseph enters with his colleague. There they find the instruments of the sorceries cast on the ground, which, as he said, sprinkled with human drink and blood, mixed with dust, those departing had left.
[16] [the sign of the cross and the name of Christ prevailing: whereby yet Joseph does not become a Christian;] But then the ambushes of those men were discovered, and it was known for the sake of what woman they were contriving these things; and so they awaited how much those arts could avail. When those sorcerers had made no progress, and the woman defended herself both by the sign of Christ and by the protection of faith, it was learned that the youth had stayed three whole nights for the sake of alluring her, and at last, frustrated in his hope, had contended in a quarrel with the impostors. This third proof of the Christian religion Joseph had, whereby he learned that against the name of Christ and the sign of the cross i the sorceries availed nothing: nor did he for that reason resolve in his mind to be a Christian.
[17] [nor did the apparition of Christ move him thereto, but against his promise he remained obstinate.] After these things Christ presents Himself to him in sleep: and, "I," He says, "am Jesus, whom thy elders drove to the cross: therefore believe in me." But Joseph, not even thus impelled, fell into a vehement and desperate sickness. Then the Lord again appearing to him exhorts him to believe in Him; so should he recover his health. When he had promised he would do this, and suddenly recovered, he persisted in the same obstinacy of mind. Wherefore, having fallen a second time into sickness, and equally despaired of, when now the Jews, his kinsmen, believed his last time k to be at hand, the sick man heard the mystery which is wont to be done by them in secret. For a certain one of the skilled in the law, advanced in age, approaching, whispered these things into his ears.
[18] Another admonition again to embrace the faith of Christ, "Believe," he said, "that Jesus, affixed to the cross under Pontius Pilate, the Son of God, and afterward born of Mary, is the Christ of God, and raised from the dead: and that He is to come to judge the dead and the living." With all asseveration I confirm that Joseph himself narrated these things to me in setting forth the series of the deed l. What besides I received from some other, who was still a Jew for fear of them, and very often dwelt among the Christians, and both greatly observed and loved them, who, as I was going through the solitude of Bethel and Ephraim from the city of Jericho m to the ridges of the mountains n, joined himself to me as a companion of my journey. To whom, when I set forth some things concerning the coming of Christ the Lord, in nothing did he contradict.
[19] and a little digression of the author concerning a Jew. At which greatly marveling, what at last was the cause, I asked the man (and he was otherwise skilled in his law, and certainly not without experience of disputing) why, I said, he answered me nothing, and agreed with me concerning Christ Jesus our Lord. To which he subjoined: that when dying he had sometimes heard whispered lightly into his ear by the Jews, "Jesus Christ crucified, the Son of God, will judge concerning thee."
But so far of these things; as to what pertains to the present matter, in truth, as we received them, let them be said. I now return to Joseph.
[20] "He, when he was still in sickness, and had heard from the elder among other things these which we have said, [Jesus appears to Joseph again and a fourth time; but not even then would he believe in Him.] 'Jesus Christ will judge concerning thee,' nevertheless hardened his mind. Therefore the Lord, out of His immense mercy toward men, again presents Himself to him in sleep: and, 'I,' He says, 'restore thee to health. Rise now, and now at last believe.' But when he recovered, not even then did he believe. Again therefore, his health now recovered, the Lord is presented to him by a vision, and accuses him that he had not yet believed. Then, promising certain most ample things, He thus addresses him: 'That thou mayest be assured,' He says, 'of the faith of my religion, if thou wilt work any prodigy in my name, invoke me myself: I will grant it to thee.'"
NOTES.
CHAPTER III.
By the miracle which he works he is not converted; he is promoted by the Jews, then beaten and exposed to death; but at last, baptized, he founds churches; and by the sign of the cross dissolves their illusions.
There was in the city of Tiberias a certain madman, running about with naked body, who, when he was often clothed, [Having received, in confirmation of the Christian faith, the power of working a miracle,] as is the custom of men of this kind, tore his garments. In him Joseph, longing to try what he had received by the vision, yet doubting somewhat, and retarded by shame. At last, his mind being confirmed, he brings him within the house; and, the doors being shut, drawing water with his hands, and sprinkling that madman, signed with the cross: "In the name," he says, "of Jesus of Nazareth crucified, go out, demon, from this man, and let him be sound." At this the man, crying out and falling to the ground, and foaming from his mouth, and tearing himself, remained a long time motionless: so that Joseph believed him to be already dead.
[22] Until, a space of an hour interposed, rubbing his face, he rose. St. Joseph frees the madman from a demon; Then, noticing himself naked, he began to hide and to protect his shameful parts with his hands, and to bear it very grievously that he was in that condition of body. At last, a garment being thrown on by Joseph from those of which there was an abundance, restored to himself, and composed in mind, he gave him great thanks after God; by whose benefit he acknowledged himself freed: and he spread it abroad through the whole city. Thus the fame of that miracle pervaded the ears of all the Jews who were there. From which a great rumor grew widespread, they thus boasting: "Joseph, the treasury being opened, found the written name of God, and by reading it works wonderful portents and prodigies."
[23] Nor were these things falsely reported, although not in the manner in which they suspected had they happened. but even thus he is hardened in his obstinacy, Meanwhile Joseph had hardened with inveterate pertinacity. But the most clement Lord, who offers to those who love Him certain notable aids of obtaining salvation, imparts the same to those whom He has determined to deem worthy of the felicity of eternal life. At the same time, when now the patriarch Judas (for so perhaps he was called) had come to a robust age, he adorns Joseph, by way of reward, with the honor and advantages of the apostolate (that is the name of the dignity). Thence he sets out with letters into Cilicia. Whither when he had come, he exacted from each town the tithes and firstfruits from the provincial Jews.
[24] promoted by the Jews to the apostolate; And then it happened by chance that in I know not what city he lodged in a house near the church. Thereupon, having contracted familiarity with the bishop, he secretly asks of him the book of the Gospels and reads. And because, for that function of Apostle which he bore (for so, as we said, that dignity is called), he bore before him the highest gravity, and severity in establishing discipline, for the performing of which thing he had been chosen, and had reduced to order and deprived of their dignity very many prefects of the synagogues, and priests and presbyters, and Azanites, by which name they call the deacons or ministers, wicked men, he turned upon himself the hatreds of many:
[25] [whom, having rightly performed his office and being occupied in reading the Gospel, they beat with rods,] Who, that they might avenge themselves on him, greatly desired to explore more curiously, and to inquire into what was done by him. For these causes therefore, having at last most sharply smelt it out, they make an unexpected onslaught upon the house, and overpower Joseph in the very reading of the Gospels. Here, the book being snatched from his hands, they seize the man, and, dashed to the ground, crying out and harassing him with the greatest insults, they lead him into the synagogue, and beat him with rods. This was the first legitimate contest undertaken by him for the faith. At this the bishop of the city ran up, and snatched him from their hands.
[26] [and they machinate to kill him; but he is preserved and at last washed by baptism, Constantine the Great greatly favoring him,] Another time afterward, when they had found him making a journey (for so he himself narrated), they cast him into the Cydnus a: and, thinking him, carried off by the impulse of the river and plunged beneath the waters, to have perished, they greatly rejoiced. But he, preserved, was afterward deemed worthy of the heavenly washing. Thence, having set out to the court, he came to the friendship of the emperor Constantine, and set forth to him whatever had happened to him; that he had held the chief place of dignity among the Jews; but that a vision had been divinely offered to him, the Lord inviting him to transfer himself to the most holy lot of the faith and knowledge of Him, and to salvation. But the best emperor, and truly the servant of Christ, and burning among princes with a certain divine ardor after David, Hezekiah, and Josiah, conferred on him this reward of dignity, which we related a little before, and made him a count, commanding besides that he should ask whatever he wished.
[27] and imparting the dignity of count with power to build churches: He asked nothing else but this one thing by way of the greatest benefit, that by the emperor's edict there might be given him the power of building, in honor of Christ, churches in all the villages and towns of the Jews. In which places no one had ever been able to build churches; because no one among them, neither gentile, nor Samaritan, nor Christian, dwelt. And especially at Tiberias, at Diocaesarea, which is also called Sephurim, at Nazareth b, at Capernaum; where they diligently observe this, that no one of another nation have his domicile there c. But Joseph, having received the letters with that power and dignity, proceeded to Tiberias, and brought with him also diplomas, by which he might take his expenses from the treasury, since he privately received his stipends from the same.
[28] Therefore at Tiberias he began to build a church. [and while he sets about founding one of them at Tiberias; the Jews try to hinder the matter by sorceries] There was in the same city a huge temple built long ago, which they called, unless I am mistaken, the Adrianium d. Which, since it had hitherto remained unfinished, the townsmen strove to change into public baths. This Joseph, having obtained, he set about accommodating to what he had conceived in mind. And as he had found it raised in squared stone to the fixed height of four cubits, he determined to impose the new mass of a church upon the old structure. For this there was need of quicklime, and all the rest of the material. Therefore he orders not a few kilns to be made outside the city, about seven, which they commonly name furnaces.
[29] Upon this the Jews, prone to dare whatever, attempt it; but Joseph, have recourse to the sorceries usual to that nation. For those excellent men undertook by magic songs and illusions to hinder the force of the fire: but they could not perpetually. Yet at the beginning the fire ceased, and cooked nothing, as if destitute of the office of its nature. Then those who were set to supply fuel to the fire, namely twigs and shrubs, when they noticed that they made no progress, report the matter to Joseph. That thing stung the man, and at once, kindled with heavenly ardor toward the Lord, he flies outside the city; he asks for water: it is brought in a bronze vessel, which they commonly call "campsace" e, there "cacubium" f.
[30] Having received it before all (for a crowd of Jews had gathered to this spectacle, [the sign of the cross being made and the name of Jesus invoked, he openly dissolves their illusions,] that they might see the event of the matter, and what at last Joseph would do) he draws with his finger the sign of the cross g over it, and, invoking the name of Jesus, with a loud voice thus speaks: "In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, whom my elders and equally those of all these who stand here drove to the cross, let this water have power to extinguish the magic arts and all the sorceries which these have prepared, and let its power be restored by the same to the fire, whereby the house of the Lord may be completed." Having said these things, he sprinkles water on each of the furnaces. Thus, the illusions being dissolved before all, the fire boiled up.
[31] By which miracle the crowd, moved, exclaimed with loud voices: and he built other temples elsewhere. "There is one God, who aids the Christians"; and so it departed. And the Jews often harassing him at other times, he at last built part of the old temple, and in that part founded a small church. Afterward, departing thence, he settled at Scythopolis. Further, at Diocaesarea and in other towns he lastly built churches. To these things we had digressed to be narrated in passing, on the occasion of those books which are found translated among the Jews, of which kind is the Gospel of John and the Acts of the Apostles translated into Hebrew. But of this historical relation thus far.