# Simon Cleophas, One Of The Seventy Disciples Of Christ, Crucified By Atticus, Under Trajan, A. D. 109.

109 · Historical source

Source: Martyrs’ Mirror. Original heading: SIMON CLEOPHAS, ONE OF THE SEVENTY DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, CRUCIFIED BY ATTICUS, UNDER TRAJAN, A. D. 109.

Source heading; not independently verified

Simon Cleophas was the son of Cleophas and
Mary, and a cousin of our Lord Jesus, because he
was the son of the brother of Joseph, the supposed
father of Christ. After the death of the apostle
James he was chosen, by common consent, bishop
of the church at Jerusalem; hence he must be distinguished
from Simon surnamed Zelotes, who was
one of the apostles, and was crucified in Persia.
For, the latter was a son of Alpheus, but the former
a son of Cleophas, not one of the twelve, but of the
seventy disciples of Christ, as Eusebius admits, saying:
“If any one should say that this Simon beheld
Christ with his own eyes, and listened to his preaching
with his own ears, he would not be beyond reason
and truth in this opinion, not only on account
of the long duration of his life, being a hundred and
twenty years old, but much more by virtue of the
testimony of the holy Gospel, in which mention is
made of Mary, the wife of Cleophas, whose son he
was, according to the testimony of Egesippus, who
was the nearest historian to the times of the apostles.”
Hist. Eccles. Euseb. Pamphil., lib. 3, cap. 11.

This is the Simon, of whom it is stated that he
was an eye-witness to the stoning of James, the holy
apostle of the Lord. Epiph. supra, in Sym. Alph.

He was accused by some wicked men before Atticus,
the governor of Emperor Trajan, of being a
Christian, yea a near relative of Christ, of the generation
of David. On this account he was dreadfully
beaten for many days with scourges and sharp
rods, so that everyone who saw him, had to lament
and wonder, the judge himself being astonished,
that a man of such a great age, a hundred and
twenty years old, was able so long to endure such
intolerable torturing.

Finally, as he remained steadfast in his confession,
he became conformed in suffering unto his
Lord, whom he confessed, and was sentenced by
Atticus to be crucified; which death he suffered in
the tenth year of Emperor Trajan, which corresponds
with the year of Christ 109. Compare the
1st Book of A. Mellinus, printed A. D. 1617, fol.
24, col. 1, 2, with Hist. Mart. Joh. Gysii, recently
printed by I. Braat, A. D. 1657, fol. 15, col. 1.

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