Church History (Eusebius)

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The Church History (Historia Ecclesiastica) of Eusebius of Caesarea was a fourth-century pioneer work giving a chronological account of the development of Christianity from the first century. It was written in Greek, and survives also in Latin, Syriac and Armenian manuscripts^[1]^[2].

1 Plan of the work
2 Chronology
3 Attitudes of the author
4 See also
5 Notes

[edit] 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:

the successions of bishops in the principal sees;
the history of Christian teachers;
the history of heresies;
the history of the Jews;
the relations to the heathen;
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: the second 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 reëstablishment of the churches and the rebellion and conquest of Licinius.

[edit] Chronology

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 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.

[edit] 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 Christianity and anti-Semitism).

… that from that time seditions and wars and mischievous plots followed each other in quick succession, and never ceased in the city and in all Judea until finally the siege of Vespasian overwhelmed them. Thus the divine vengeance overtook the Jews for the crimes which they dared to commit against Christ.

—Eusebius Pamphilius^[3]

This is not simply anti-Semitism, however. Eusebius levels a similar charge against Christians, blaming a spirit of divisiveness for some of the most severe persecutions.

But when on account of the abundant freedom, we fell into laxity and sloth, and envied and reviled each other, and were almost, as it were, taking up arms against one another, rulers assailing rulers with words like spears, and people forming parties against people, and monstrous hypocrisy and dissimulation rising to the greatest height of wickedness, the divine judgment with forbearance, as is its pleasure, while the multitudes yet continued to assemble, gently and moderately harassed the episcopacy.

—Eusebius Pamphilius^[4]