Symeon of Jerusalem Crucified

After Nero and Domitian, under the emperor whose times we are now examining, report has it that persecution was stirred up against us here and there, city by city, as the result of popular uprisings. In it, we have learned, Symeon the son of Clopas, who as we have shown was appointed the second bishop of the church in Jerusalem, ended his life by martyrdom. [a] The witness to this is that same Hegesippus whose words we have already used in several places. In his account of certain heretics he goes on to show that Symeon was accused by them at this time and, as a Christian, was tortured in many ways for a great many days, so that he struck the judge himself and those around him with the utmost amazement; and he met an end much like the Lord’s suffering. [c] But there is nothing like hearing the writer himself, who tells these very things word for word, as follows: “It was some of these heretics who accused Simon the son of Clopas of being descended from David and a Christian. And so he suffered martyrdom at the age of a hundred and twenty, under Trajan Caesar and Atticus the consular governor.” [d] The same writer says that his accusers too, when members of the royal tribe of the Jews were being sought out at that time, happened to be caught as belonging to it. One might reasonably say that Symeon was one of those who saw and heard the Lord with their own eyes and ears, judging by the length of his life and by the fact that the Gospels mention Mary of Clopas; and Symeon, as our account has already shown, was the son of Clopas. [f]

The same writer says that others too, descendants of one of the so-called brothers of the Savior, whose name was Judas, lived on into the same reign, after the testimony for faith in Christ that they gave under Domitian, as has already been told. He writes as follows: [g] “So they came and presided over every church, as witnesses and as members of the Lord’s family. And since deep peace had come to every church, they remained until Trajan Caesar, until Simon the son of Clopas, mentioned above, the son of the Lord’s uncle, was informed against by the sects and was likewise accused himself on the same charge before Atticus the consular governor. He was tortured for many days and suffered martyrdom, so that everyone, even the consular governor, was astonished beyond measure that at a hundred and twenty years old he could endure it. And he was ordered to be crucified.” [h]

In addition to this, the same man, telling of the events of those times, adds that until then the Church had remained a pure and uncorrupted virgin. Any who tried to corrupt the sound rule of the saving message, if there were any, still lay hidden in some obscure darkness, as if in a den. But when the sacred band of the apostles had come to the end of their lives in various ways, and that generation of those counted worthy to hear the inspired wisdom with their own ears had passed away, then godless error began to organize itself through the deceit of teachers of other doctrines. Since none of the apostles was left any longer, these men tried from then on, barefaced, to preach against the message of the truth “what is falsely called knowledge.” [j]