Ancient Non-Christian Sources On The Death Of The Apostles

Last year, I wrote a series of posts about what the apostles and their contemporaries tell us about the death of the apostles. I want to supplement that series with this post about what ancient non-Christian sources tell us.

Many ancient non-Christians were in a position to know whether Christian leaders were persecuted and executed, as well as the circumstances surrounding those activities. When the early Christians claimed that Paul was executed in Rome by the government authorities, or that Jesus' brother, James, was put to death in Jerusalem by Jewish authorities, for example, some of the Roman and Jewish opponents of Christianity would have been in a good position to judge those claims. They also would have had strong motivation to deny the claims if they were false. It was common to allow those being persecuted an opportunity to recant in order to avoid suffering (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 10:96-97; Justin Martyr, First Apology, 4; The Martyrdom Of Polycarp, 9; Origen, Against Celsus, 2:13, 2:17). The enemies of Christianity had reason to offer an opportunity to recant, since recantations would be valuable to them. If any of the apostles had recanted, as modern skeptics sometimes suggest as a possibility, the non-Christians who received the recantation or heard about it would have had an incentive to make that recantation known. Similarly, the early heretics who opposed one or more of the apostles (e.g., Marcion) would have had an interest in publicizing information about the unfaithfulness of those apostles.

What I've outlined above not only makes sense in the abstract, but also is reinforced by what we know of the behavior of Christianity's enemies in antiquity. A common argument against Christianity was to criticize Jesus for choosing such poor leaders for his movement, men like Judas and Peter. Celsus and other ancient critics of Christianity made much of Judas' apostasy and the temporary unfaithfulness of Peter, such as his triple denial of Christ and his behavior in Galatians 2. The issue comes up over and over again in interactions between the early Christians and their enemies (John Cook, The Interpretation Of The New Testament In Greco-Roman Paganism [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002], 48, 158-159, 210-212, 247, 315-316). Though Peter is criticized for his denials of Christ, his actions in Galatians 2, and other faults, he's not criticized for anything like Judas' apostasy or renouncing the faith in the circumstances surrounding his death. There's no non-Christian objection to an apostasy of, say, Thomas or Andrew, like the objection to the apostasy of Judas that's frequently brought up. The fact that the ancient enemies of Christianity so often discussed the unfaithfulness of men like Judas and Peter, yet didn't object to anything like Paul or John renouncing the faith when facing persecution, is a significant line of evidence suggesting that Judas was the only apostate. As I documented in my series last year, some early Christian sources tell us that all of the apostles other than Judas died as faithful Christians. That claim seems to be corroborated by the early enemies of Christianity.

One of the early non-Christian sources we have on the death of an apostle is Josephus, who commented on the death of Jesus' brother, James. I wrote about that passage in Josephus in my series last year.

Heracleon, a heretic who wrote around the mid to late second century, also made some comments about the death of the apostles (cited in Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, 4:9). He referred to two ways of confessing Christ. A person can confess Christ by living as a faithful Christian. Or a person can confess Christ by professing to be a Christian before government rulers in the context of martyrdom. Heracleon thought that the Christians of his day held too high a view of the latter and too low a view of the former. People who had lived unfaithful lives would profess to be Christians just before being martyred, and they were held in too high an esteem just because of their confession of Christ shortly before their death. Heracleon wanted more of an emphasis placed on confessing Christ through faithful living. He cites "Matthew, Philip, Thomas, Levi, and many others" as illustrations of Christians who had lived faithful lives without confessing Christ before government officials in the context of martyrdom. He seems to be naming apostles. All four of the names he mentions are apostolic names. He doesn't include any qualifiers to explain which Matthew, which Philip, etc. he has in mind. That sort of unqualified reference to people with those names is best explained if he had better-known rather than lesser-known individuals in mind, like the apostles. The question, then, is why he would mention less prominent apostles, like Matthew and Philip, rather than more prominent ones, like Peter and Paul. Most likely, he chose less prominent apostles because he knew that the most prominent ones did confess Christ before government officials who then martyred them. As I documented in my series last year, we have good evidence, from the apostles and their contemporaries, that James and John, sons of Zebedee, James, the brother of Jesus, Paul, and Peter died as martyrs at the hands of the Jewish and Roman authorities. If the five most prominent apostles didn't fall into the category Heracleon was addressing, then he'd have to cite lesser examples, like Matthew and Philip. Keep in mind that it would have been in Heracleon's interest to use better examples to illustrate his argument. His passing over men like Peter and Paul, in order to cite lesser examples like Matthew and Philip instead, was something he was doing against his interests. (By the way, notice that the issue here isn't whether men like Matthew and Philip died as martyrs. Rather, the issue is whether they confessed Christ before government officials in the context of martyrdom. Even if Heracleon is right in claiming that those apostles didn't confess Christ in that manner, they may have been martyred by a mob or an individual who wasn't affiliated with the state, for example. And no matter how they died, Heracleon is agreeing with the orthodox Christians of his day in affirming that men like Matthew and Philip remained faithful to Christ.)

Concerning some other non-Christian sources, Tertullian wrote:

"That Peter is struck, that Stephen is overwhelmed by stones, that James is slain as is a victim at the altar, that Paul is beheaded has been written in their own blood. And if a heretic wishes his confidence to rest upon a public record, the archives of the empire will speak, as would the stones of Jerusalem. We read the lives of the Caesars: At Rome Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith. Then is Peter girt by another, when he is made fast to the cross. Then does Paul obtain a birth suited to Roman citizenship, when in Rome he springs to life again ennobled by martyrdom. Wherever I read of these occurrences, so soon as I do so, I learn to suffer; nor does it signify to me which I follow as teachers of martyrdom, whether the declarations or the deaths of the apostles, save that in their deaths I recall their declarations also." (Scorpiace, 15)

Porphyry, a third-century critic of Christianity, seems to have objected to Matthew 20:23 on the basis that John didn't die as a martyr (John Cook, The Interpretation Of The New Testament In Greco-Roman Paganism [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002], 143). The implication is that he accepted the martyrdom of James, who's mentioned in the same passage in Matthew 20. As I discussed in my series last year (see the post here), the evidence suggests that John and James both died as martyrs. But the idea that John died of natural causes eventually became popular, and Porphyry apparently either adopted that view or raised an objection based on some Christians' acceptance of that position. That he apparently didn't raise a similar objection to James' martyrdom is significant.

An unidentified critic of Christianity is quoted as follows by Macarius Magnes:

"And yet no sooner was he [Paul] seized in Rome than this fine fellow, who said that we should judge angels, had his head cut off. And Peter again, who received authority to feed the lambs, was nailed to a cross and impaled on it. And countless others, who held opinions like theirs, were either burned, or put to death by receiving some kind of punishment or maltreatment. This is not worthy of the will of God, nor of a pious man, that a multitude of people should be cruelly punished through their relation to his own grace and faith, while the expected resurrection and coming remains unknown." (cited in ibid., 212)

Julian the Apostate argued that the deity of Christ wasn't taught by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or Paul. He accuses John of originating the doctrine. He suggests that John may have wanted to elevate Jesus because of undue devotion the Christians of his day were showing toward Peter and Paul. He claims that in the first century "the tombs of Peter and Paul were being worshipped" by Christians (ibid., 304). Most likely, Julian has in mind the sort of devotion to martyrs that he saw among Christians in his own day (e.g., ibid., 326). He probably thought Peter and Paul died as martyrs, but even if he didn't, he's at least implying that they were perceived by the early Christians as having died in the faith. Otherwise, the concept of Christians worshiping their tombs is more difficult to explain.

Faustus, a Manichaean, affirmed that Peter and Andrew died on a cross (in Augustine, Reply To Faustus The Manichaean, 14:1). In other contexts, Faustus was willing to reject, and sometimes did reject, apostolic teaching and traditional Christian beliefs about the apostles (e.g., ibid., 11:1, 16:4). So, he didn't just uncritically accept whatever Christians claimed on such issues.