The (Hegesippan?) list of Roman bishops.

[Stuart]

The same is true with Roman bishops. When did Rome gain primacy? We know this was after Nicene, that the Church skewed east, dominated by what today is Turkey, but then would have been considered Greece. Rome started to weigh in, maybe even before this. The list in Eusubius serves to give Rome the prominence, the leadership before it established it, and give a list of Petrine succession.

But we have to ask would Eusubius, who is supposedly the loyal historian of Constantine, have promoted a Roman "Holy See" as the authority over the authority of Constantine and the East where he resided? Does this make any sense? The answer is no, this makes no sense. The list and commentary is much more comfortably placed later by the compendium collector of Eusubius' work, when Rome was the dominant See.

I may regret asking this, but where does Eusebius promote Rome as the authority over Constantine and the East? The Roman episcopal list itself does not do that; Eusebius traces the first bishops of Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Ephesus, too.

The "real" Eusubius doesn't and wouldn't. But the focus on Roman succession in the lists do show that their author was Roman prioritist. I am not at all convinced that Book III is from Eusubius at all, rather scraps pulled together by others.

The tracing of Bishops in Ephesus (3.31.3) is a classic example of the Roman See primacy leaking into the Byzantine Eusubius' compendium (an example of why I think we are looking at a 3rd or 4th edition from the late middle ages). The claim for Polycrates family to have a Cohen type of Levite inheritance of bishophood is attached to a letter purportedly from Polycrates to Victor at the end of the 2nd century. I break it into two paragraphs, only the bold sentences are immediately relevant to the paschal dispute,

We observe the exact day; neither adding, nor taking away. For in Asia also great lights have fallen asleep, which shall rise again on the day of the Lord's coming, when he shall come with glory from heaven, and shall seek out all the saints. Among these are Philip, one of the twelve apostles, who fell asleep in Hierapolis; and his two aged virgin daughters, and another daughter, who lived in the Holy Spirit and now rests at Ephesus; and, moreover, John, who was both a witness and a teacher, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and, being a priest, wore the sacerdotal plate. He fell asleep at Ephesus. And Polycarp in Smyrna, who was a bishop and martyr; and Thraseas, bishop and martyr from Eumeneia, who fell asleep in Smyrna. Why need I mention the bishop and martyr Sagaris who fell asleep in Laodicea, or the blessed Papirius, or Melito the Eunuch who lived altogether in the Holy Spirit, and who lies in Sardis, awaiting the episcopate from heaven, when he shall rise from the dead?
All these observed the fourteenth day of the Passover according to the Gospel, deviating in no respect, but following the rule of faith.

Further I also, Polycrates, the least of you all, do according to the tradition of my relatives, some of whom I have closely followed. For seven of my relatives were bishops; and I am the eighth. And my relatives always observed the day when the people put away the leaven. I, therefore, brethren, who have lived sixty-five years in the Lord, and have met with the brethren throughout the world, and have gone through every Holy Scripture, am not frightened by terrifying words. For those greater than I have said 'We ought to obey God rather than man'...I could mention the bishops who were present, whom I summoned at your desire; whose names, should I write them, would constitute a great multitude. And they, beholding my littleness, gave their consent to the letter, knowing that I did not bear my gray hairs in vain, but had always governed my life by the Lord Jesus.

The rest is credential claims, and surprisingly an admission of inferior ecclesiastical status to Rome in the first sentence of the 2nd paragraph - that alone should put us on high alert that we are looking at a secondary hand. (This is not to say the compendium of material under the name of Eusubius is the source, which I doubt here, rather we are looking at interpolation in the Polycrates letter from an era when Rome had the upper hand, or at least the interpolator was a Roman prioritist.)

The latter two paragraphs actually insult the intelligence of the Roman Bishop Victor, whom the writer these acknowledges as the higher church authority, yet apparently is ignorant of Church lore. That is crazy to even consider, that one could rise to leadership without knowing any of the church lore or history of the major Sees.

The content however goes back to the credential fight in Ephesus, the battle over whether Paul or John is to be the patron saint and the authority the current succession of bishops claims. It is famous because of it's identification of John with the unnamed beloved disciple of the fourth gospel. (Note, Robert Price focuses much of his theories on the replacement of Paul with John in Ephesus for legendary patron saint, but I do not think Orthodoxy per se played the heavy role in this that Price does, because John is just as tinged with Gnostic following as Paul, and he would hardly have been a safe patron saint for Orthodoxy.)

The point is, even this list of succession, or rather familial claim, is embedded in a text that asserts Roman authority or at least primacy over Ephesus, by giving Victor of Rome the undisputed leader of church policy in the paschal dispute, with Ephesus appealing their Johannine claim.


Digression, off topic but interesting to me; should be ignored for this thread:
The whole John in Ephesus is a fascinating topic, with Acts of the Apostles, 3 John, and the apocryphal Acts of John, and the fragment of the Polycrates letter to Victor all weighing in, showing very derived stories from some lost apocryphal Acts; none is original. I find most fascinating how Demetrius morphs from a silversmith for the shrine of Artemis in Acts 19 to an apparently unnamed bystander of resurrection by John of a priest of Artemis killed by an Act of God called down by John in the Acts of John, to finally a named Christian witness/brother in 3 John 12. Like an ongoing TV or movie series, characters back stories change and fill out as needed to fill expanded roles in the sequels

[Secret Alias]

On your initial translation:

καὶ κατὰ τὴν Ῥωμαίων δὲ πόλιν πεντεκαιδεκάτῳ τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς ἐνιαυτῷ Πίου μεταλλάξαντος, Ἀνίκητος τῶν ἐκεῖσε προΐσταται· καθ’ ὃν Ἡγήσιππος ἱστορεῖ ἑαυτὸν ἐπιδημῆσαι τῇ Ῥώμῃ παρα μεῖναί τε αὐτόθι μέχρι τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς Ἐλευθέρου.

And in Rome Pius died in the fifteenth year of his episcopate, and Anicetus assumed the leadership of the Christians there. Hegesippus records that he himself was in Rome at this time, and that he remained there until the episcopate of Eleutherus.

Eusebius is clearly wrong as the editors note here - https://books.google.com/books?id=QzswA ... te&f=false