[510:2] Hist. iv. 5.
[510:3] According to Eusebius his appointment took place after the destruction of Jerusalem, or about A.D. 71. He was, therefore, at the head of the Church forty-five years, as his martyrdom occurred in A.D. 116. According to this reckoning he was in his seventy-fifth year when made president.
[510:4] This explanation of the matter approximates to that given by Tillemont. "Cela peut etre venu de ce qu'on les choisissoit entre les plus agez du Clergé pour les faire Evesques: car on ne voit pas qu'ils ayent esté plus persecutez que d'autres."—Mém. pour servir à l'Histoire Ecclesiastique, tom. ii. part ii. p. 40. It would appear from Eusebius (iii. 32), that at the time of the death of Simeon there were still living a number of very old persons who were relatives of our Lord. Some of these were, probably, elders in the Church of Jerusalem.
[511:1] He is said in the "Chronicon" of Eusebius to have presided sixteen years.
[511:2] Euseb. v. 12.
[512:1] In the tenth century, the darkest and most revolting period in the history of the Popedom, there were twenty-four bishops of Rome. Some of these reigned only a few days; at least one of them was strangled; several of them died in prison; and several others were driven from the see or deposed. There have been only twenty-four Popes in the last two hundred and fifty years.
[512:2] There have been only twenty-eight Archbishops of Canterbury since 1454.
[512:3] In the middle of the third century we find Firmilian appealing to it as a witness against the Church of Home. Cyprian, Epist. lxxv. Opera, p. 303.
[512:4] "Hist." vi. 20.
[513:1] "Hist." iv. 5; v. 12.