The Episcopal Seat in the first century Church in Jerusalem
The historian and bishop Eusebius (249 - 340 AD) quotes St. Clement of Alexandria (d. 215) concerning St. James the Righteous, one of the Twelve Apostles.
Eusebius quotes St. Clement as having written the following:
"Peter, James and John, after the Ascension of the Savior, did not strive after honor, because the Savior had specially honored them, but chose James the Righteous as Bishop of Jerusalem." (E.H. 2.1)
This is the James about whom St. Paul writes in Galatians 1:19. He is the author of the book of James in the New Testament. And his position as bishop of Jerusalem explains his prominence in Luke's account of the Jerusalem Council (c. 49-50 AD) in Acts 15. St. Clement of Alexandria relates that this James was "thrown down from a parapet and beaten to death with a fuller's club". (E.H. 2.1) Eusebius provides a fuller account (E.H. 2.23) of the martyrdom of this James by drawing from Hegesippus (c. 110-180 AD), whom Eusebius tells us "belonged to the first generation after the apostles". This is where we learn that St. James's "knees grew hard like a camel's from his continually bending them in worship of God and beseeching forgiveness for the people."
According to Eusebius, St. James the Righteous had been "the first after our Saviour's Ascension to be raised to the bishop's throne there [in Jerusalem]". (E.H. 3.5)
Eusebius then writes the following:
[BOQ] After the martyrdom of James and the conquest of Jerusalem which immediately followed, there is a firm tradition that those of the apostles and disciples of the Lord that were still living came together from all directions with those who, humanly speaking, were kinsmen of the Lord (for the majority of them also were still alive) to take counsel as to who was worthy to succeed James. They all with one consent pronounced Symeon, the son of Clopas, of whom the Gospel also makes mention; to be worthy of the episcopal throne of that see. He was a cousin, as they say, of the Saviour. For Hegesippus records that Clopas was a brother of Joseph.[EOQ] (E.H. 3.11)
Eusebius again draws from Hegesippus to recount the martyrdom of Symeon under the emperor Trajan in the year 106 or 107 AD. (cf. E.H. 3.32) Apparently Symeon, as an old man, was tortured for days and then crucified. According to Eusebius, "When Symeon had found fulfilment in the manner described, his successor on the throne of the Jerusalem bishopric was a Jew named Justus, one of the vast number of the circumcision who by then believed in Christ." (E.H. 3.35)
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