that he has been taken up in clouds into the heavens."
4. At this the King, being affected with rage, ordered the senate to publish a decree that they should put to death all those who confessed themselves to be Christians. Those, then, who were found in the time of his rage, and who reaped the fruit of patience, and were crowned in the triumphant contest against the works of the devil, received the repose of incorruption.
5. And the fame of the teaching of John was spread abroad in Rome; and it came to the ears of Domitian, that there was a certain Hebrew in Ephesus, John by name,[1] who spread a report about the empire of the Romans, saying that it would quickly be rooted out, and that the Kingdom of the Romans would be given over to another. And Domitian, troubled by what was said, sent a centurion with soldiers to seize John and bring him. And having gone to Ephesus, they asked where John lived. And having come up to his gate, they
- ↑ According to cod. Vatic. 654 (XI, or XII, cent.) the Ephesians sent the following report to the emperor after the destruction of the Artemis-Temple: "To the imperator Caesar Augustus, the glorious, the triumphator. Be it known to thee, that a certain man, named John, of Jewish descent and a Galilean according to his religion, has come into Asia, even into thy devoted city of Ephesus. He has excited all and turned them away from the religion of the fathers, and made them follow him, so that a strange name and a strange people originated. And unless you destroy him quickly, you will lose the people and the country." When the Emperor Hadrian heard this, he sent swift-footed soldiers to fetch the apostle.—This report differs from the contents in ch. 3 given above.
