Eusebius Julius Halsema

Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima in the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the biblical canon and is regarded as one of the most learned Christians during late antiquity. He wrote ''Demonstrations of the Gospel'', '' Preparations for the Gospel'' and ''On Discrepancies between the Gospels'', studies of the biblical text. As "Father of Church History" (not to be confused with the title of Church Father), he produced the '' Ecclesiastical History'', ''On the Life of Pamphilus'', the ''Chronicle'' and ''On the Martyrs''. He also produced a biographical work on Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor, who was ''augustus'' between AD 306 and AD 337.

Although Eusebius' works are regarded as giving insight into the history of the early church, he was not without prejudice, especially in regard to the Jews, for while "Eusebius indeed blames the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus, he nevertheless also states that forgiveness can be granted even for this sin and that the Jews can receive salvation." Some scholars question the accuracy of Eusebius' works. For example, at least one scholar, Lynn Cohick, dissents from the majority view that Eusebius is correct in identifying the Melito of ''Peri Pascha'' with the Quartodeciman bishop of Sardis. Cohick claims as support for her position that "Eusebius is a notoriously unreliable historian, and so anything he reports should be critically scrutinized." Eusebius' '' Life of Constantine'', which he wrote as a eulogy shortly after the emperor's death in AD 337, is "often maligned for perceived factual errors, deemed by some so hopelessly flawed that it cannot be the work of Eusebius at all." Others attribute this perceived flaw in this particular work as an effort at creating an overly idealistic hagiography, calling him a "Constantinian flunky" since, as a trusted adviser to Constantine, it would be politically expedient for him to present Constantine in the best light possible.

Sources

Little is known about the life of Eusebius. His successor at the See of Caesarea, Acacius, wrote a ''Life of Eusebius'', a work that has since been lost. Eusebius' own surviving works probably only represent a small portion of his total output. Beyond notices in his extant writings, the major sources are the 5th-century ecclesiastical historians Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, and the 4th-century Christian author Jerome. There are assorted notices of his activities in the writings of his contemporaries Athanasius, Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Alexander of Alexandria. Eusebius' pupil, Eusebius of Emesa, provides some incidental information.

Early life

Most scholars date the birth of Eusebius to some point between AD 260 and 265. He was most likely born in or around Caesarea Maritima. Nothing is known about his parents. He was baptized and instructed in the city, and lived in Syria Palaestina in 296, when Diocletian's army passed through the region (in the ''Life of Constantine'', Eusebius recalls seeing Constantine traveling with the army).Wallace-Hadrill, 12, citing Socrates, ''Historia Ecclesiastica'' 1.8; Theodoret, ''Historia Ecclesiastica'' 1.11.

Eusebius was made presbyter by Agapius of Caesarea. Some, like theologian and ecclesiastical historian John Henry Newman, understand Eusebius' statement that he had heard Dorotheus of Tyre "expound the Scriptures wisely in the Church" to indicate that Eusebius was Dorotheus' pupil while the priest was resident in Antioch; others, like the scholar D. S. Wallace-Hadrill, deem the phrase too ambiguous to support the contention.

Through the activities of the theologian Origen (185/6–254) and the school of his follower Pamphilus (later 3rd century – 309), Caesarea became a center of Christian learning. Origen was largely responsible for the collection of usage information, or which churches were using which gospels, regarding the texts which became the New Testament. The information used to create the late-fourth-century Easter Letter, which declared accepted Christian writings, was probably based on the ''Ecclesiastical History'' Eof Eusebius of Caesarea, wherein he uses the information passed on to him by Origen to create both his list at HE 3:25 and Origen's list at HE 6:25. Eusebius got his information about what texts were accepted by the third-century churches throughout the known world, a great deal of which Origen knew of firsthand from his extensive travels, from the library and writings of Origen.

On his deathbed, Origen had made a bequest of his private library to the Christian community in the city. Together with the books of his patron Ambrosius, Origen's library (including the original manuscripts of his works) formed the core of the collection that Pamphilus established. Pamphilus also managed a school that was similar to (or perhaps a re-establishment of) that of Origen. Pamphilus was compared to Demetrius of Phalerum and Pisistratus, for he had gathered Bibles "from all parts of the world". Like his model Origen, Pamphilus maintained close contact with his students. Eusebius, in his history of the persecutions, alludes to the fact that many of the Caesarean martyrs lived together, presumably under Pamphilus.

Soon after Pamphilus settled in Caesarea (''ca''. 280s), he began teaching Eusebius, who was then somewhere between twenty and twenty-five.Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 94. Because of his close relationship with his schoolmaster, Eusebius was sometimes called ''Eusebius Pamphili'': "Eusebius, son of Pamphilus". The name may also indicate that Eusebius was made Pamphilus' heir. Pamphilus gave Eusebius a strong admiration for the thought of Origen. Neither Pamphilus nor Eusebius knew Origen personally; Pamphilus probably picked up Origenist ideas during his studies under Pierius (nicknamed "Origen Junior") in Alexandria.

Eusebius' ''Preparation for the Gospel'' bears witness to the literary tastes of Origen: Eusebius quotes no comedy, tragedy, or lyric poetry, but makes reference to all the works of Plato and to an extensive range of later philosophic works, largely from Middle Platonists from Philo to the late 2nd century. Whatever its secular contents, the primary aim of Origen and Pamphilus' school was to promote sacred learning. The library's biblical and theological contents were more impressive: Origen's ''Hexapla'' and ''Tetrapla''; a copy of the original Aramaic version of the Gospel of Matthew; and many of Origen's own writings. Marginal comments in extant manuscripts note that Pamphilus and his friends and pupils, including Eusebius, corrected and revised much of the biblical text in their library. Their efforts made the hexaplaric Septuagint text increasingly popular in Syria and Palestine. Soon after joining Pamphilus' school, Eusebius started helping his master expand the library's collections and broaden access to its resources. At about this time Eusebius compiled a ''Collection of Ancient Martyrdoms'', presumably for use as a general reference tool.

In the 290s, Eusebius began work on his most important work, the ''Ecclesiastical History'', a narrative history of the Church and Christian community from the Apostolic Age to Eusebius' own time. At about the same time, he worked on his ''Chronicle'', a universal calendar of events from the Creation to, again, Eusebius' own time. He completed the first editions of the ''Ecclesiastical History'' and ''Chronicle'' before 300.

Bishop of Caesarea

Eusebius succeeded Agapius as Bishop of Caesarea soon after 313 and was called on by Arius who had been excommunicated by his bishop Alexander of Alexandria. An episcopal council in Caesarea pronounced Arius blameless. Eusebius enjoyed the favor of the Emperor Constantine. Because of this he was called upon to present the creed of his own church to the 318 attendees of the Council of Nicaea in 325. However, the anti-Arian creed from Palestine prevailed, becoming the basis for the Nicene Creed.

The theological views of Arius, that taught the subordination of the Son to the Father, continued to be controversial. Eustathius of Antioch strongly opposed the growing influence of Origen's theology as the root of Arianism. Eusebius, an admirer of Origen, was reproached by Eustathius for deviating from the Nicene faith. Eusebius prevailed and Eustathius was deposed at a synod in Antioch.

However, Athanasius of Alexandria became a more powerful opponent and in 334 he was summoned before a synod in Caesarea (which he refused to attend). In the following year, he was again summoned before a synod in Tyre at which Eusebius of Caesarea presided. Athanasius, foreseeing the result, went to Constantinople to bring his cause before the Emperor. Constantine called the bishops to his court, among them Eusebius. Athanasius was condemned and exiled at the end of 335. Eusebius remained in the Emperor's favour throughout this time and more than once was exonerated with the explicit approval of the Emperor Constantine. After the Emperor's death (c. 337), Eusebius wrote the '' Life of Constantine'', an important historical work because of eyewitness accounts and the use of primary sources.

Works

Of the extensive literary activity of Eusebius, a relatively large portion has been preserved. Although posterity suspected him of Arianism, Eusebius had made himself indispensable by his method of authorship; his comprehensive and careful excerpts from original sources saved his successors the painstaking labor of original research. Hence, much has been preserved, quoted by Eusebius, which otherwise would have been lost.

The literary productions of Eusebius reflect on the whole the course of his life. At first, he occupied himself with works on biblical criticism under the influence of Pamphilus and probably of Dorotheus of Tyre of the School of Antioch. Afterward, the persecutions under Diocletian and Galerius directed his attention to the martyrs of his own time and the past, and this led him to the history of the whole Church and finally to the history of the world, which, to him, was only a preparation for ecclesiastical history.

Then followed the time of the Arian controversies, and dogmatic questions came into the foreground. Christianity at last found recognition by the State; and this brought new problems – apologies of a different sort had to be prepared. Lastly, Eusebius wrote eulogies in praise of Constantine. To all this activity must be added numerous writings of a miscellaneous nature, addresses, letters, and the like, and exegetical works that extended over the whole of his life and that include both commentaries and an important treatise on the location of biblical place names and the distances between these cities.

''Onomasticon''

Biblical text criticism

Pamphilus and Eusebius occupied themselves with the textual criticism of the Septuagint text of the Old Testament and especially of the New Testament. An edition of the Septuagint seems to have been already prepared by Origen, which, according to Jerome, was revised and circulated by Eusebius and Pamphilus. For an easier survey of the material of the four Evangelists, Eusebius divided his edition of the New Testament into paragraphs and provided it with a synoptical table so that it might be easier to find the pericopes that belong together. These canon tables or "Eusebian canons" remained in use throughout the Middle Ages, and illuminated manuscript versions are important for the study of early medieval art, as they are the most elaborately decorated pages of many Gospel books. Eusebius detailed in ''Epistula ad Carpianum'' how to use his canons.

''Chronicle''

The ''Chronicle'' ( (''Pantodape historia'')) is divided into two parts. The first part, the ''Chronography'' ( (''Chronographia'')), gives an epitome of universal history from the sources, arranged according to nations. The second part, the ''Canons'' ( (''Chronikoi kanones'')), furnishes a synchronism of the historical material in parallel columns, the equivalent of a parallel timeline.

The work as a whole has been lost in the original Greek, but it may be reconstructed from later chronographists of the Byzantine school who made excerpts from the work, especially George Syncellus. The tables of the second part have been completely preserved in a Latin translation by Jerome, and both parts are still extant in an Armenian translation. The loss of the Greek originals has given the Armenian translation a special importance; thus, the first part of Eusebius' ''Chronicle'', of which only a few fragments exist in Greek, has been preserved entirely in Armenian, though with lacunae. The ''Chronicle'' as preserved extends to the year 325.

''Church History''

In his ''Church History'' or ''Ecclesiastical History'', Eusebius wrote the first surviving history of the Christian Church as a chronologically ordered account, based on earlier sources, complete from the period of the Apostles to his own epoch. The time scheme correlated the history with the reigns of the Roman Emperors, and the scope was broad. Included were the bishops and other teachers of the Church, Christian relations with the Jews and those deemed heretical, and the Christian martyrs through 324. Although its accuracy and biases have been questioned, it remains an important source on the early church due to Eusebius's access to materials now lost.

''Life of Constantine''

Eusebius' '' Life of Constantine'' (''Vita Constantini'') is a eulogy or panegyric, and therefore its style and selection of facts are affected by its purpose, rendering it inadequate as a continuation of the ''Church History.'' As the historian Socrates Scholasticus said, at the opening of his history which was designed as a continuation of Eusebius, "Also in writing the life of Constantine, this same author has but slightly treated of matters regarding Arius, being more intent on the rhetorical finish of his composition and the praises of the emperor than on an accurate statement of facts." The work was unfinished at Eusebius' death. Some scholars have questioned the Eusebian authorship of this work.

Conversion of Constantine according to Eusebius

Writing decades after Constantine had died, Eusebius claimed that the emperor himself had recounted to him that some time between the death of his father – the ''augustus'' Constantius – and his final battle against his rival Maxentius as ''augustus'' in the West, Constantine experienced a vision in which he and his soldiers beheld a Christian symbol, "a cross-shaped trophy formed from light", above the sun at midday.Eusebius of Caesarea, ''Vita Constantini'', 1.29 Attached to the symbol was the phrase "by this conquer" ( grc, ἐν τούτῳ νίκα, label=none, translit=en toútōi níka), a phrase often rendered into Latin as "'' in hoc signo vinces''". In a dream that night "the Christ of God appeared to him with the sign which had appeared in the sky, and urged him to make himself a copy of the sign which had appeared in the sky, and to use this as a protection against the attacks of the enemy." Eusebius relates that this happened "on a campaign he onstantinewas conducting somewhere". It is unclear from Eusebius's description whether the shields were marked with a Christian cross or with a '' chi-rho'', a staurogram, or another similar symbol.

The Latin text ''De mortibus persecutorum'' contains an early account of the 28 October 312 Battle of the Milvian Bridge written by Lactantius probably in 313, the year following the battle. Lactantius does not mention a vision in the sky but describes a revelatory dream on the eve of battle. Eusebius's work of that time, his ''Church History'', also makes no mention of the vision. The Arch of Constantine, constructed in AD 315, neither depicts a vision nor any Christian insignia in its depiction of the battle. In his posthumous biography of Constantine, Eusebius agrees with Lactantius that Constantine received instructions in a dream to apply a Christian symbol as a device to his soldiers' shields, but unlike Lactantius and subsequent Christian tradition, Eusebius does not date the events to October 312 and does not connect Constantine's vision and dream-vision with the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.

Minor historical works

Before he compiled his church history, Eusebius edited a collection of martyrdoms of the earlier period and a biography of Pamphilus. The martyrology has not survived as a whole, but it has been preserved almost completely in parts. It contained:
* an epistle of the congregation of Smyrna concerning the martyrdom of Polycarp;
* the martyrdom of Pionius;
* the martyrdoms of Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonike;
* the martyrdoms in the congregations of Vienne;
* the martyrdom of Apollonius.

Of the life of Pamphilus, only a fragment survives. A work on the martyrs of Palestine in the time of Diocletian was composed after 311; numerous fragments are scattered in legendaries which have yet to be collected. The life of Constantine was compiled after the death of the emperor and the election of his sons as Augusti (337). It is more a rhetorical eulogy on the emperor than a history but is of great value on account of numerous documents incorporated into it.

Apologetic and dogmatic works

To the class of apologetic and dogmatic works belong:
* The ''Apology for Origen'', the first five books of which, according to the definite statement of Photius, were written by Pamphilus in prison, with the assistance of Eusebius. Eusebius added the sixth book after the death of Pamphilus. We possess only a Latin translation of the first book, made by Rufinus.
* A treatise against Hierocles (a Roman governor), in which Eusebius combated the former's glorification of Apollonius of Tyana in a work entitled ''A Truth-loving Discourse'' (Greek: ''Philalethes logos''); in spite of manuscript attribution to Eusebius, however, it has been argued (by Thomas Hagg and more recently, Aaron Johnson) that this treatise "Against Hierocles" was written by someone other than Eusebius of Caesarea.
* '' Praeparatio evangelica'' (''Preparation for the Gospel''), commonly known by its Latin title, which attempts to prove the excellence of Christianity over every pagan religion and philosophy. The ''Praeparatio'' consists of fifteen books which have been completely preserved. Eusebius considered it an introduction to Christianity for pagans. But its value for many later readers is more because Eusebius studded this work with so many lively fragments from historians and philosophers which are nowhere else preserved. Here alone is preserved Pyrrho's translation of the Buddhist Three marks of existence upon which Pyrrho based Pyrrhonism. Here alone is a summary of the writings of the Phoenician priest Sanchuniathon of which the accuracy has been shown by the mythological accounts found on the Ugaritic tables. Here alone is the account from Diodorus Siculus's sixth book of Euhemerus' wondrous voyage to the island of Panchaea where Euhemerus purports to have found his true history of the gods. And here almost alone is preserved writings of the neo-Platonist philosopher Atticus along with so much else.
* ''Demonstratio evangelica'' (''Proof of the Gospel'') is closely connected to the ''Praeparatio'' and comprised originally twenty books of which ten have been completely preserved as well as a fragment of the fifteenth. Here Eusebius treats of the person of Jesus Christ. The work was probably finished before 311;
* Another work which originated in the time of the persecution, entitled '' Prophetic Extracts'' (''Eclogae propheticae''). It discusses in four books the Messianic texts of Scripture. The work is merely the surviving portion (books 6–9) of the ''General elementary introduction'' to the Christian faith, now lost. The fragments given as the Commentary on Luke in the PG have been claimed to derive from the missing tenth book of the General Elementary Introduction (see D. S. Wallace-Hadrill); however, Aaron Johnson has argued that they cannot be associated with this work.

* The treatise ''On Divine Manifestation'' or ''On the Theophania'' (''Peri theophaneias''), of unknown date. It treats of the incarnation of the Divine Logos, and its contents are in many cases identical with the ''Demonstratio evangelica.'' Only fragments are preserved in Greek, but a complete Syriac translation of the ''Theophania'' survives in an early 5th-century manuscript. Samuel Lee, the editor (1842) and translator (1843) of the Syriac ''Theophania,'' thought that the work must have been written "after the general peace restored to the Church by Constantine, and before either the 'Praeparatio,' or the 'Demonstratio Evangelica,' was written ...It appears probable ... therefore, that this was one of the first productions of Eusebius, if not the first after the persecutions ceased." Hugo Gressmann, noting in 1904 that the ''Demonstratio'' seems to be mentioned at IV. 37 and V. 1, and that II. 14 seems to mention the extant practice of temple prostitution at Hieropolis in Phoenica, concluded that the ''Theophania'' was probably written shortly after 324. Others have suggested a date as late as 337.
* A polemical treatise against Marcellus of Ancyra, the ''Against Marcellus'', dating from about 337;
* A supplement to the last-named work, also against Marcellus, entitled ''Ecclesiastical Theology