Ecclesiastical History (Eusebius)

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An 1842 edition of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History

The Ecclesiastical History (Template:Langx, Template:Translit; Template:Langx), also known as The History of the ChurchTemplate:Sfnp and The Church History,Template:Sfnp is a 4th-century chronological account of the development of Early Christianity from the 1st century to the 4th century, composed by Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea. It was written in Koine Greek and survives also in Latin, Syriac, and Armenian manuscripts.

Contents

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Syriac manuscript of Ecclesiastical History, X,I,4-II,1 (National Library of Russia, Codex Syriac 1)

The result was the first full-length narrative of the world history written from a Christian point of view.Template:Sfn summarizes Eusebius's influence on historiography. According to Paul Maier, Herodotus was the father of history and Eusebius of Caesarea is the father of ecclesiastical history.Template:Sfnp In the early 5th century, two advocates in Constantinople, Socrates Scholasticus and Sozomen, and a bishop, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Syria, wrote continuations of Eusebius's account, establishing the convention of continuators that would determine to a great extent the way history was written for the next thousand years. Eusebius's Chronicle, which attempted to lay out a comparative timeline of pagan and Old Testament history, set the model for the other historiographical genre, the medieval chronicle or universal history.

Eusebius had access to the Theological Library of Caesarea and made use of many ecclesiastical monuments and documents, acts of the martyrs, letters, extracts from earlier Christian writings, lists of bishops, and similar sources, often quoting the originals at great length so that his work contains materials not elsewhere preserved.

It is therefore of historical value, though it pretends neither to completeness nor to the observance of due proportion in the treatment of the subject-matter. Nor does it present in a connected and systematic way the history of the early Christian Church. It is to no small extent a vindication of the Christian religion, though the author did not primarily intend it as such. Eusebius has been often accused of intentional falsification of the truth . Other scholars, while admitting that his judging of persons or facts is not entirely unbiased, push back on claims of intentional fabrication as "quite unjust."Template:Sfnp

Plan of the work

Eusebius attempted according to his own declaration (I.i.1) to present the history of the Church from the apostles to his own time, with special regard to the following points:

1. the successions of bishops in the principal sees;
2. the history of Christian teachers;
3. the history of heresies;
4. the history of the Jews;
5. the relations to the heathen;
6. the martyrdoms.

He grouped his material according to the reigns of the emperors, presenting it as he found it in his sources. The contents are as follows:

• Book I: detailed introduction on Jesus Christ
• Book II: The history of the apostolic time to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus
• Book III: The following time to Trajan
• Books IV and V: approximately the 2nd century
• Book VI: The time from Septimius Severus to Decius
• Book VII: extends to the outbreak of the persecution under Diocletian
• Book VIII: more of this persecution
• Book IX: history to Constantine's victory over Maxentius in the West and over Maximinus in the East
• Book X: The reestablishment of the churches and the rebellion and conquest of Licinius.

Chronology

Andrew Louth has argued that the Ecclesiastical History was first published in 313. In its present form, the work was brought to a conclusion before the death of Crispus (July 326), and, since book x is dedicated to Paulinus, Archbishop of Tyre, who died before 325, at the end of 323 or in 324. This work required the most comprehensive preparatory studies, and it must have occupied him for years. His collection of martyrdoms of the older period may have been one of these preparatory studies.

Attitudes of the author

Eusebius blames the calamities which befell the Jewish nation on the Jews' role in the death of Jesus. This quote has been used to attack both Jews and Christians (see Antisemitism in Christianity).

Eusebius levels a similar charge against Christians, blaming a spirit of divisiveness for some of the most severe persecutions.

He also launches into a panegyric in the middle of Book X. He praises the Lord for his provisions and kindness to them for allowing them to rebuild their churches after they have been destroyed.

Criticism

The accuracy of Eusebius's account has often been called into question. In the 5th century, the Christian historian Socrates Scholasticus described Eusebius as writing for "rhetorical finish" in his ("Life of Constantine") and for the "praises of the Emperor" rather than the "accurate statement of facts."Template:Efn The methods of Eusebius were criticised by Edward Gibbon in the 18th century.Template:Sfnp In the 19th century Jacob Burckhardt viewed Eusebius as a liar, the "first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity."Template:Sfnp Ramsay MacMullen in the 20th century regarded Eusebius's work as representative of early Christian historical accounts in which "Hostile writings and discarded views were not recopied or passed on, or they were actively suppressed... matters discreditable to the faith were to be consigned to silence."Template:Sfnp As a consequence this kind of methodology in MacMullen's view has distorted modern attempts, (e.g. Harnack, Nock, and Gustave Bardy), to describe how the Church grew in the early centuries.Template:Sfnp Arnaldo Momigliano wrote that in Eusebius's mind "chronology was something between an exact science and an instrument of propaganda".Template:Sfnp

Translations

The work was translated into other languages in ancient time (Latin, Syriac, Armenian). Codex Syriac 1 housed at the National Library of Russia is one of the oldest Syriac manuscripts, dated to the year 462.

English translations

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A page from the prefatory material of Mary Basset's translation of the Ecclesiastical History

The first partial English translation was by Mary Basset, the granddaughter of Sir Thomas More, who worked on Eusebius's first five books between 1544 and 1553 and presented her manuscript to Mary Tudor. The first printed English version was by Meredith Hanmer in 1576 and then subsequently much reprinted.

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See also

• Ecclesiastical history (Catholicism)
• Medieval ecclesiastic historiography

Other early church historians:

• Socrates Scholasticus
• Sozomen
• Theodoret of Cyrus
• Rufinus of Aquileia (he added two books to his translation of Eusebius)
• Philostorgius
• Evagrius Scholasticus
• Zacharias Rhetor
• Theodorus Lector
• John of Ephesus
• Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
• Flavius Josephus
• Saint Hegisuppus
• Justin Irenaeus

References

Sources

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Further reading

• R. M. Q. Grant, Eusebius as Church Historian (Oxford University Press) 1980. Discusses the dependability of Eusebius as a historian.
• Doron Mendels, The Media Revolution of Early Christianity : An Essay on Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History ( Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.) 1999

External links

• Greek text Template:Webarchive
• Abbreviated English text, McGiffert translation
• English text, McGiffert translation, with introduction and notes
• Template:Librivox book