Thursday, April 7, 2011

Hegesippus

Today we commemorate Hegesippus. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

A writer of the second century, known to us almost exclusively from Eusebius, who tells us that he wrote in five books in the simplest style the true tradition of the Apostolic preaching. His work was entitled hypomnemata (Memoirs), and was written against the new heresies of the Gnostics and of Marcion. He appealed principally to tradition as embodied in the teaching which had been handed down in the Churches through the succession of bishops. St. Jerome was wrong in supposing him to have composed a history. He was clearly an orthodox Catholic and not a "Judaeo-Christian", though Eusebius says he showed that he was a convert from Judaism, for he quoted from the Hebrew, he was acquainted with the Gospel according to the Hebrews and with a Syriac Gospel, and he also cited unwritten traditions of the Jews. He seems to have belonged to some part of the East, possibly Palestine. He went on a journey to Corinth and Rome, in the course of which he met many bishops, and he heard from all the same doctrine. He says: "And the Church of the Corinthians remained in the true word until Primus was bishop in Corinth; I made their acquaintance in my journey to Rome, and remained with the Corinthians many days, in which we were refreshed with the true word. And when I was in Rome, I made a succession up to Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. And in each succession and in each city all is according to the ordinances of the law and the Prophets and the Lord" (Eusebius, IV, 22).

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