§ 7. HOW I LABORED IN BERŒA.
Having given myself during many days to the reading and meditating in the three books of the Gospels, I found much less addition of wonders and other doubtful matters than I had expected, and least of all in that book which was said by most to have been written according to the teaching of Marcus; only in rendering the Hebrew into the Greek there had been a few errors; and in some two or three passages, figures of speech appeared to have been interpreted according to the letter. But the other two books though they contained most excellent traditions, very full and ample, of certain words of the Lord, had added supplements touching the birth of the Lord Jesus and his childhood and youth, and also concerning his manifestations after his rising from the dead, which were not known to me. So, after much debate with myself, I concluded to write to Philochristus, sending to him the three books and asking his judgment concerning them. This done, I bade farewell to the brethren in Rome and betook myself to Berœa where the Lord had prepared for me an abundant work.
Many days I continued laboring in Berœa and hearing naught from Philochristus; yet was I not without some guidance from the Lord. For day by day, ministering to the unlearned among the brethren, I perceived that the presence and the power of the Lord among them were not let or hindered by what I deemed their errors. The three books of the Gospels were beginning at this time to be commonly read among them, and I saw that the multitude willingly believed all things written therein, especially concerning the birth of the Lord Jesus, and concerning his manifesting of himself after death by divers signs and tokens, as by eating in the presence of the disciples, and by giving his body to be touched. Now remembering what the blessed Apostle Paulus had enjoined on me, that I must by all means seek to attain as much of the truth as possible, though there must needs be some error, I was minded at first to restrain the brethren in Berœa from the public reading of these new traditions. But one of the elders of the Church dissuaded me, saying in the first place that the truth was uncertain; and in the second place, that, if the people believed not these traditions, and especially the tradition concerning the birth of the Lord, they must needs fall into error, not being able to receive the doctrine that the son of Mary and Joseph was verily the Son of God begotten before the worlds and taking flesh as a man for our sakes. “Either therefore;” said he, “they will believe that he was merely man and not God; or else that he was not man at all, but a phantom, born of no human father nor mother either; as certain sects in Asia believe.” And he added that the Lord seemed to allow this new doctrine if doctrine might be judged by the fruits thereof; because all that believed it were full of zeal, and patience, and love for the brethren, and all virtue, ready to lay down their lives for the Lord. So I, considering that it was one thing to strive towards certainty, and another thing to restrain others from their opinions, being also myself uncertain, suffered the new gospels to be read in Berœa without hindrance, and the more willingly because the three Gospels now brought in began to drive out many other writings of Gospels which sprang up about this time, or even before, full of wonders, and portents, and not preserving the truth of the life of the Lord Jesus. So in a very short time the three Gospels were brought in, and multiplied by transcribers, and were read in all our assemblies, and the catechumens were also instructed in them.
And now, after I had been about one year or more in Berœa, I received from Britain a letter written by Philochristus, which was most welcome; but withal another letter most unwelcome, written by the new Bishop of Londinium, saying that the blessed Elder Philochristus had fallen asleep in the Lord, and that this his letter, written some months before, had only of late been found among his papers, wherefore it had been long delayed in the sending. So, when I opened and read it, I seemed to be receiving his message from beyond the grave, guiding me on the path in which I should go; and these were the words of the letter.