Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/378

 convinced, till John had drunken poison without harm, by which two malefactors were killed instantly, and also raised the malefactors to life. This resuscitation he rendered the more convincing to Aristodemus, by making him the instrument of it. The apostle pulled off his tunic, and gave it to Aristodemus. "And what is this for?" said the high priest. "To cure you of your infidelity," was the reply. "But how is your tunic to cure me of infidelity?" "Go," said the apostle, "and spread it upon the dead bodies, and say: 'The apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ hath sent me to resuscitate you, in his name, that all may know, that life and death are the servants of Jesus Christ, my Lord.'" By this miracle the high priest was fully convinced; and afterwards convinced the proconsul. Both of them were baptized,—and persecution, from that time, ceased. They also built the church dedicated to St. John, at Ephesus.

For this series of fables I am indebted again to the kindness of Dr. Murdock, in whose manuscript lectures they are so well translated from the original romances, as to make it unnecessary for me to repeat the labor of making a new version from the Latin. The sight of the results of abler efforts directly before me, offers a temptation to exonerate myself from a tedious and unsatisfactory effort, which is too great to be resisted, while researches into historical truth have a much more urgent claim for time and exertion.

The only one of all these fables that occurs in the writings of the Fathers, is the first, which may be pronounced a tolerably respectable and ancient story. It is narrated by Clemens Alexandrinus, (about A. D. 200.) The story is copied from Clemens Alexandrinus by Eusebius, from whom we receive it, the original work of Clemens being now lost. Chrysostom also gives an abridgement of the tale. (I. Paraenes. ad Theod.) Anastasius Sinaita, Simeon Metaphrastes, Nicephorus Callistus, the Pseudo-Abdias, and the whole herd of monkish liars, give the story almost verbatim from Clemens; for it is so full in his account as to need no embellishment to make it a good story. Indeed its completeness in all these interesting details, is one of the most suspicious circumstances about it; in short, it is almost too good a story to be true. Those who wish to see all the evidence for and against its authenticity, may find it thoroughly examined in Lampe's Prolegomena in Joannem. (I. v. 4—10.) It is, on the whole, the best authorized of all the stories about the apostles, which are given by the Fathers, and may reasonably be considered to have been true in the essential parts, though the minute details of the conversations, &c., are probably embellishments worked in by Clemens Alexandrinus, or his informants.

The rest of these stories are, most unquestionably, all unmitigated falsehoods; nor does any body pretend to find the slightest authority for a solitary particular of them. They are found no where but in the novels of the Pseudo-Abdias, and the martyrologies. (Abd. Babyl., Apost. Hist. lib. V., S. Joan.)

HIS DEATH.

Respecting the close of his life, all antiquity is agreed that it was not terminated by martyrdom, nor by any violent death whatever, but by a calm and peaceful departure in the course of nature, at a very great age. The precise number of years to which he attained can not be known, because no writer who lived within five hundred years of his time has pretended to specify his exact age. It is merely mentioned on very respectable ancient au