Eusebius of Caesarea

Caesarea, one of the active founders of the young Christian Church. This prominent theologian and writer was the first to attempt to create a multi- volume history of the church.

Eusebius (264-340) was born in Palestine and studied in Caesarea, where Origen had founded a school and acquired a large collection of books. Eusebius was noted for his extraordinary erudition, knowledge of ancient Greek and Roman literature, and ambition. His personality, views, and writings had a great influence on the religious policy of Emperor Constantine the Great whose time and life was amply described by the Caesarean bishop. A considerable part of Eusebius’s works (in Greek) have survived. They had a noticeable impact on the perception of the events and figures of that distant time, the time of nascent Christianity and the first ecumenical councils, by various generations of historians.

Eusebius of Caesarea was a prolific writer: he wrote an astounding number of works, almost all of which were devoted to the Christian Church and its origins, the Old Testament. The writer’s best known works are: The Chronicle, a history of the world according to the Bible. Interestingly, the complete version of this book has survived only in an Armenian translation that was discovered and identified only in the late 18th century; and the 10- volume Church History, which traces ecclesiastical history from the emergence of the Christian Church in the early 1st century to the full triumph in the times of Emperor Constantine the Great (4th century).

In his polemical work Proof of the Gospel, Eusebius claims that the only true foundation of Christianity is Judaism, not Greek paganism, as many of his contemporary theologians believed. Yet this did not prevent him from harshly criticizing the Jews for their refusal “to accept the Son of God.” In the book Onomasticon (the toponymy and topography of the Holy Land), Eusebius drew up a list of geographic names mentioned in the Old and New Testaments and described the history of the Holy Land’s population until the 4th century. This work also contained information about the populated areas in the Holy Land, the distance between them, and the number of residents. It is no exaggeration to say that, if not for the Caesarean bishop’s concerted effort, the history of the Holy Land may have been somewhat different and far from precise.

During Eusebius’s lifetime an event occurred that changed the course of Christian (and European) history: the First Council of Nicaea convened at the behest of Emperor Constantine the Great in 325. The council launched the extremely difficult ideological work of creating the Symbol of Faith. One of the main reasons why the council was held was the lack of agreement among most of the delegates with regard to the teaching of Arius, who claimed that Christ - the Son of God - is not “equal in essence” to the Father, but is only the first and perfect creation of God the Father. (In other words, the question at issue was monotheism.)

Eusebius witnessed endless disputes about “re-baptism,” which, incidentally, continue even today, particularly in Ukraine. At the time (as in our day), the church was divided on this question. Some maintained that all those who were baptized by heretics must be re-baptized. Others insisted that if “heretics” carried out baptism the right way, i.e., they pronounced the words “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” re-baptism would be buffoonery and a sin because in such cases it is enough for a bishop to lay his hand on a person. This problem is still unresolved today, judging by the current practice of the Russian Orthodox Church to re-baptize those who were baptized in some other Orthodox church and then chose to join the Russian one. There is very little hope that the future Eighth Orthodox Ecumenical Council will settle this conflict: it is increasingly obvious that this council is being postponed until kingdom come.

Mykhailo Posnov, a well-known Kyiv-based pre-revolutionary historian, theologian, and professor, writes that Eusebius’s chief achievement was his painstaking study of church legends and literal borrowings from ancient books; if not for Eusebius, these texts would not have survived. Thanks to Eusebius, many accounts of events that took place in the crucial period of early Christianity are still in good condition. Eusebius employed scholarly methods, even by today’s standards: he made a careful study of church problems and sources and borrowed extensively from the religious works of his time, which would not have survived without Eusebius’s “assistance.”

Below is a short fragment from the introduction to Church History by Archbishop Eusebius of Caesarea:

“I have assigned myself the task to write an account of the successions of the Holy Apostles as well as of the times that have elapsed from the days of our Savior to our own; and to relate the many important events that are said to have occurred in the history of the Church; and to mention those who have governed and presided over the Church in the most prominent parishes, and those who in each generation have proclaimed the Divine Word either orally or in writing. [It is also my task to give] the names and number and times of those who through love of innovation have reached the limits of error, and, proclaiming themselves discoverers of knowledge falsely so called, like fierce wolves have unmercifully devastated Christ’s flock. It is my intention, moreover, to recount the misfortunes that immediately beset the entire Jewish nation in consequence of their plots against our Savior, and to record the ways and the times in which the Divine Word has been attacked by the Gentiles, and to describe the character of those who at various periods have contended for it in the face of blood and tortures... But at the outset I beg the indulgence of the wise to my work, for I confess that it is beyond my power to produce a perfect and complete history, and since I am the first to engage in such a subject, I am attempting to traverse as if it were an unknown and untrodden path.

“Having gathered therefore from the matters mentioned here and there... and having plucked like flowers from a meadow appropriate passages from the ancient writers, we shall endeavor to embody the whole in an historical narrative, content if we preserve the memory of the successions of the apostles of our Savior; if not indeed of all, yet of the most renowned of them in those churches that are the most noted and which even to the present time are still unforgotten.”