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Nicene and Ante-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol I: The Churc...

Church HistoryEusebiusNicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

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This is a chapter from Eusebius's *Ecclesiastical History* (likely Book V), a foundational work of early Christian historiography, here presenting the episcopal succession of the Jerusalem church. The chapter establishes that after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem under Hadrian, the Jerusalem church became Gentile in composition, with Marcus as its first Gentile bishop, and lists the subsequent bishops through Narcissus, the thirtieth in succession from the apostles. The extensive scholarly footnotes engage critically with the source's reliability, cross-referencing Eusebius against the *Chronicle*, Epiphanius, and Syncellus to reconstruct dates and note discrepancies — concluding that the accession dates of nearly all these bishops are simply unknowable. A notable claim concerns Narcissus himself: a bishop of remarkable piety who was slandered into self-imposed exile, later returned and was restored, and lived to an extraordinary old age (possibly his 116th year), though a tradition calling him a martyr is dismissed as unsubstantiated. The footnote commentary is particularly candid about the limits of the evidence, repeatedly stressing that competing ancient sources contradict one another and that no reliable chronology can be reconstructed before Narcissus. Readers interested in early church governance, the transition from Jewish to Gentile Christianity in Jerusalem, or the methodology of patristic historiography will find this chapter and its annotations useful.

Nicene and Ante-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol I: The Churc...

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