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he remained, having threatened death to the accusers of the Christians.” This being cast into his mind by a dispensation of divine providence, so that the word of the Gospel, having an unhindered beginning, might spread over all the earth. 2.3.1 Thus indeed, by heavenly power and cooperation, at once, like a sunbeam, the saving word illuminated the whole inhabited world. Immediately, following the divine Scriptures, “the sound” of his divine evangelists and apostles went forth “unto all the earth,” “and their 2.3.2 words to the ends of the world.” And indeed, throughout all cities and villages, like a crowded threshing floor, churches with countless men and vast multitudes were at once established. And those who by ancestral succession and ancient error had their souls bound by the old disease of the superstition of idols, through the power of Christ by means of the teaching and miracles of His disciples, as if freed from terrible masters and having found release from the harshest bonds, spurned all demonic polytheism, and confessed that there is only one God, the creator of all things; and they honored Him with the rites of true piety through the inspired and sober worship sown in the life of men by our Savior. 2.3.3 But as the divine grace was now being poured out upon the other nations as well, and as Cornelius in Palestinian Caesarea with his whole household was the first to accept the faith in Christ through a divine vision and the ministry of Peter, and as many other Greeks in Antioch, to whom those scattered in the persecution of Stephen had preached, did the same, and with the church in Antioch just then flourishing and growing, and with a great many prophets from Jerusalem also present there, and with them Barnabas and Paul, and besides these another multitude of brethren, the name of Christian then first arose there, as from a flourishing and 2.3.4 fertile spring. And Agabus, one of the prophets with them, foretold that there would be a famine, and Paul and Barnabas were sent forth to attend to the ministry for the brethren. 2.4.1 Tiberius, then, died after reigning for about twenty-two years, and after him Gaius took over the rule and immediately bestowed upon Agrippa the diadem of the rule of the Jews, appointing him king of the tetrarchy of both Philip and of Lysanias. To these, after a short time, he also added the tetrarchy of Herod, punishing with perpetual exile Herod—this was he of the time of the Savior’s passion—along with his wife Herodias, on account of numerous charges. Josephus is also a witness of these things. 2.4.2 At this time Philo was well known to many, a man most distinguished not only among our own people, but also among those who came from secular learning. He was by race a Hebrew from of old, and inferior to none of the prominent men in authority at Alexandria, 2.4.3 and how great and what sort of labor he contributed to divine and ancestral studies is clear to all from his work; and in regard to the philosophical and liberal arts of secular learning, there is no need to say what kind of man he was, since especially by emulating the discipline of Plato and Pythagoras, he is reported to have surpassed all his contemporaries. 2.5.1 This man records in five books the events that happened to the Jews under Gaius, at the same time recounting the madness of Gaius, how he proclaimed himself a god and committed countless outrages during his reign, and the sufferings of the Jews under him, and the embassy which he himself undertook to the city of the Romans on behalf of his fellow countrymen in Alexandria, and how, when he appeared before Gaius on behalf of the ancestral laws, he reaped nothing more than laughter and mockery, and nearly endured peril to his 2.5.2 life. Josephus also mentions these things, writing these words verbatim in the eighteenth book of the Antiquities: “And when a sedition arose in Alexandria between the Jews who live there, and the Greeks, three from each of the factions

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ἔμεινεν, ἀπειλήσας θάνατον τοῖς τῶν Χριστιανῶν κατηγόροις.» τῆς οὐρανίου προνοίας κατ' οἰκονομίαν τοῦτ' αὐτῷ πρὸς νοῦν βαλλομένης, ὡς ἂν ἀπαραποδίστως ἀρχὰς ἔχων ὁ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου λόγος πανταχόσε γῆς διαδράμοι. 2.3.1 Οὕτω δῆτα οὐρανίῳ δυνάμει καὶ συνεργίᾳ ἀθρόως οἷά τις ἡλίου βολὴ τὴν σύμπασαν οἰκουμένην ὁ σωτήριος κατηύγαζε λόγος. αὐτίκα ταῖς θείαις ἑπομένως γραφαῖς ἐπὶ «πᾶσαν» προῄει «τὴν γῆν ὁ φθόγγος» τῶν θεσπεσίων εὐαγγελιστῶν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀποστόλων, «καὶ εἰς τὰ πέρατα τῆς οἰκουμένης τὰ 2.3.2 ῥήματα αὐτῶν». καὶ δῆτα ἀνὰ πάσας πόλεις τε καὶ κώμας, πληθυούσης ἅλωνος δίκην, μυρίανδροι καὶ παμπληθεῖς ἀθρόως ἐκκλησίαι συνεστήκεσαν, οἵ τε ἐκ προγόνων διαδοχῆς καὶ τῆς ἀνέκαθεν πλάνης παλαιᾷ νόσῳ δεισιδαιμονίας εἰδώλων τὰς ψυχὰς πεπεδημένοι, πρὸς τῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ δυνάμεως διὰ τῆς τῶν φοιτητῶν αὐτοῦ διδασκαλίας τε ὁμοῦ καὶ παραδοξοποιίας ὥσπερ δεινῶν δεσποτῶν ἀπηλλαγμένοι εἱργμῶν τε χαλεπωτάτων λύσιν εὑράμενοι, πάσης μὲν δαιμονικῆς κατέπτυον πολυθεΐας, ἕνα δὲ μόνον εἶναι θεὸν ὡμολόγουν, τὸν τῶν συμπάντων δημιουργόν, τοῦτόν τε αὐτὸν θεσμοῖς ἀληθοῦς εὐσεβείας δι' ἐνθέου καὶ σώφρονος θρῃσκείας τῆς ὑπὸ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν τῷ τῶν ἀνθρώπων βίῳ κατασπαρείσης ἐγέραιρον. 2.3.3 ἀλλὰ γὰρ τῆς χάριτος ἤδη τῆς θείας καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ λοιπὰ χεομένης ἔθνη καὶ πρώτου μὲν κατὰ τὴν Παλαιστίνων Καισάρειαν Κορνηλίου σὺν ὅλῳ τῷ οἴκῳ δι' ἐπιφανείας θειοτέρας ὑπουργίας τε Πέτρου τὴν εἰς Χριστὸν πίστιν καταδεξαμένου πλείστων τε καὶ ἄλλων ἐπ' Ἀντιοχείας Ἑλλήνων, οἷς οἱ κατὰ τὸν Στεφάνου διωγμὸν διασπαρέντες ἐκήρυξαν, ἀνθούσης ἄρτι καὶ πληθυούσης τῆς κατὰ Ἀντιόχειαν ἐκκλησίας ἐν ταὐτῷ τε ἐπιπαρόντων πλείστων ὅσων τῶν τε ἀπὸ Ἱεροσολύμων προφητῶν καὶ σὺν αὐτοῖς Βαρναβᾶ καὶ Παύλου ἑτέρου τε πλήθους ἐπὶ τούτοις ἀδελφῶν, ἡ Χριστιανῶν προσηγορία τότε πρῶτον αὐτόθι ὥσπερ ἀπ' εὐθαλοῦς καὶ 2.3.4 γονίμου πηγῆς ἀναδίδοται. καὶ Ἄγαβος μέν, εἷς τῶν συνόντων αὐτοῖς προφητῶν, περὶ τοῦ μέλλειν ἔσεσθαι λιμὸν προθεσπίζει, Παῦλος δὲ καὶ Βαρναβᾶς ἐξυπηρετησόμενοι τῇ τῶν ἀδελφῶν παραπέμπονται διακονίᾳ. 2.4.1 Τιβέριος μὲν οὖν ἀμφὶ τὰ δύο καὶ εἴκοσι βασιλεύσας ἔτη τελευτᾷ, μετὰ δὲ τοῦτον Γάϊος τὴν ἡγεμονίαν παραλαβών, αὐτίκα τῆς Ἰουδαίων ἀρχῆς Ἀγρίππᾳ τὸ διάδημα περιτίθησιν, βασιλέα καταστήσας αὐτὸν τῆς τε Φιλίππου καὶ τῆς Λυσανίου τετραρχίας, πρὸς αἷς μετ' οὐ πολὺν αὐτῷ χρόνον καὶ τὴν Ἡρῴδου τετραρχίαν παραδίδωσιν, ἀϊδίῳ φυγῇ τὸν Ἡρῴδην οὗτος δ' ἦν ὁ κατὰ τὸ πάθος τοῦ σωτῆρος σὺν καὶ τῇ γυναικὶ Ἡρῳδιάδι πλείστων ἕνεκα ζημιώσας αἰτιῶν. μάρτυς Ἰώσηπος καὶ τούτων. 2.4.2 Κατὰ δὴ τοῦτον Φίλων ἐγνωρίζετο πλείστοις, ἀνὴρ οὐ μόνον τῶν ἡμετέρων, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς ἔξωθεν ὁρμωμένων παιδείας ἐπισημότατος. τὸ μὲν οὖν γένος ἀνέκαθεν Ἑβραῖος ἦν, τῶν δ' ἐπ' Ἀλεξανδρείας ἐν τέλει διαφανῶν οὐδενὸς χείρων, 2.4.3 περὶ δὲ τὰ θεῖα καὶ πάτρια μαθήματα ὅσον τε καὶ ὁπηλίκον εἰσενήνεκται πόνον, ἔργῳ πᾶσι δῆλος, καὶ περὶ τὰ φιλόσοφα δὲ καὶ ἐλευθέρια τῆς ἔξωθεν παιδείας οἷός τις ἦν, οὐδὲν δεῖ λέγειν, ὅτε μάλιστα τὴν κατὰ Πλάτωνα καὶ Πυθαγόραν ἐζηλωκὼς ἀγωγήν, διενεγκεῖν ἅπαντας τοὺς καθ' ἑαυτὸν ἱστορεῖται. 2.5.1 καὶ δὴ τὰ κατὰ Γάϊον οὗτος Ἰουδαίοις συμβάντα πέντε βιβλίοις παραδίδωσιν, ὁμοῦ τὴν Γαΐου διεξιὼν φρενοβλάβειαν, ὡς θεὸν ἑαυτὸν ἀναγορεύσαντος καὶ μυρία περὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐνυβρικότος, τάς τε κατ' αὐτὸν Ἰουδαίων ταλαιπωρίας καὶ ἣν αὐτὸς στει λάμενος ἐπὶ τῆς Ῥωμαίων πόλεως ὑπὲρ τῶν κατὰ τὴν Ἀλεξάνδρειαν ὁμοεθνῶν ἐποιήσατο πρεσβείαν, ὅπως τε ἐπὶ τοῦ Γαΐου καταστὰς ὑπὲρ τῶν πατρίων νόμων, οὐδέν τι πλέον γέλωτος καὶ διασυρμῶν ἀπηνέγκατο, μικροῦ δεῖν καὶ τὸν περὶ τῆς 2.5.2 ζωῆς ἀνατλὰς κίνδυνον. μέμνηται καὶ τούτων ὁ Ἰώσηπος, ἐν ὀκτωκαιδεκάτῳ τῆς Ἀρχαιολογίας κατὰ λέξιν ταῦτα γράφων· «καὶ δὴ στάσεως ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ γενομένης Ἰουδαίων τε οἳ ἐνοικοῦσι, καὶ Ἑλλήνων, τρεῖς ἀφ' ἑκατέρας τῆς στάσεως