The Grandsons of Jude

“Of the family of the Lord there still survived the grandsons of Jude, who was called his brother according to the flesh. [a] They were informed against as being of David’s family, and the evocatus brought them to Domitian Caesar; for he feared the coming of Christ, as Herod had. He asked them whether they were descended from David, and they admitted it. Then he asked them how much property they had, or how much money they controlled. They said that between the two of them they had only nine thousand denarii, half belonging to each; [b] and they did not have this in money, but in the value of only about nine acres of land, from which they paid their taxes and supported themselves by their own labor.” [c]

Then they showed their hands, offering the hardness of their bodies and the calluses pressed into their hands by constant work as evidence of their own labor. [d] When they were asked about Christ and his kingdom, what kind of kingdom it was, and where and when it would appear, they explained that it was not of this world nor earthly, but heavenly and angelic, and that it would come at the end of the age, when he would come in glory to judge the living and the dead and repay each according to his conduct. [e] At this Domitian found nothing against them, but, despising them as men of no account, he let them go free and by decree put an end to the persecution against the Church. Once released, they led the churches, as being both witnesses and of the Lord’s family; and when peace came, they lived on until Trajan. So much from Hegesippus. [f]

Tertullian too makes mention of Domitian in this way: “Domitian too, a portion of Nero’s cruelty, had once tried to do the same as he. But, I suppose, having some sense, he very quickly stopped, and even recalled those he had banished.” [g] After Domitian had ruled fifteen years and Nerva had succeeded to the empire, the Roman Senate voted that Domitian’s honors should be removed, and that those who had been unjustly banished should return home and recover their property. So those report who have handed down in writing the history of those times. [h] It was then, as the account of the ancients among us hands down, that the apostle John too left his exile on the island and took up residence at Ephesus.