Hegesippus (chronicler)

Hegesippus (Ἅγιος Ἡγήσιππος; c. 110 – c.180 AD), also known as Hegesippus the Nazarene, was a Christian writer of the early Church who may, in spite of his Greek name, have been a Jewish convert and certainly wrote against heresies of the Gnostics and of Marcion. The dates that Hegesippus flourished are insecurely fixed by the statement of Eusebius that the death and apotheosis of Antinous (130) occurred in Hegesippus' lifetime, and that he came to Rome under Pope Anicetus (Bishop of Rome c. 157–168) and wrote in the time of Pope Eleuterus (pontificate c. 174–189). Hegesippus' works are now entirely lost, save eight passages concerning Church history quoted by Eusebius, who tells us that he wrote Hypomnemata (Ὑπομνήματα; "Memoirs" or "Memoranda") in five books, in the simplest style concerning the tradition of the Apostolic preaching. Through Eusebius, Hegesippus was also known to Jerome, who is responsible for the idea that Hegesippus "wrote a history of all ecclesiastical events from the passion of our Lord down to his own period... in five volumes", which has established the Hypomnemata as a Church history. Hegesippus appealed principally to tradition as embodied in the teaching which had been handed down through the succession of bishops, thus providing for Eusebius information about the earliest bishops that otherwise would have been lost. Eusebius says that Hegesippus was a convert from Judaism, learned in the Semitic languages and conversant with the oral tradition and customs of the Jews, for he quoted from the Hebrew, was acquainted with the Gospel of the Hebrews and with a Syriac Gospel, and he also cited unwritten traditions of the Jews. Eusebius' own shaky command of Hebrew and Aramaic, and his lack of personal knowledge of customs of the Jews, were insufficiently founded to judge Hegesippus as a dependable source. He seems to have lived in some part of the East, for, in the time of Pope Anicetus (A.D.