Christian History Magazine Collection

His work became the foundation for centuries of Christian scholarship. Was that foundation firm or hopelessly flawed?

by Everett Ferguson from Christian History magazine no. 72

Many people know Eusebius of Caesarea as the “Father of Church History.” But as Robert M. Grant, a modern historian of the early church period, provocatively asked, “Did the Father of Church History write history?”

Jewish historian Doron Mendels describes Eusebius’s Church History as a “media revolution” and suggests that, because of his style of weaving short entries into a broader scheme, the author was “one of the fathers of the journalistic genre.” Another writer concludes that Eusebius was “less a historian than a mediator of knowledge.”

Or perhaps a mediator of propaganda. This is the man who called Emperor Constantine “most beloved by God,” described the fourth-century church as being brought to “a state of uniform harmony,” and called Jews “a people who had slain the prophets and the Lord himself.”

However one evaluates Eusebius’s achievement, his work remains foundational for our knowledge of the church in its first three centuries. And this foundation stands firm despite noticeable cracks.

Ground zero

Eusebius was not only a recorder of history, but one of the key players at a significant turning point for the church. His era was marked by the “Great Persecution” under Diocletian and his co-rulers (303-311), the conversion of Emperor Constantine (312), and the council of Nicea (325).

About many events of his time, Eusebius could write as an eyewitness:

“We saw with our own eyes the houses of prayer thrown down to the very foundations, and the divine and sacred Scriptures committed to the flames in the market-places, and the shepherds of the churches basely hidden here and there, and some of them captured ignominiously, and mocked by their enemies” (Church History 8.2.1).

Yet the one who told us so much about the church’s history and his own times did not tell us much about himself. Neither did anyone else.

He was born around 260 and presumably grew up in Caesarea of Palestine, where he came under the influence of Pamphilius, a learned teacher from Alexandria. Pamphilius, a devoted student of Origen, gathered an impressive library of Origen’s writings, as well as copies of the Scriptures and commentaries on them. This library and the library of Bishop Alexander of Jerusalem provided the basis of Eusebius’s learning.

Pamphilius was imprisoned in 308. Eusebius visited him often, and the two wrote five volumes of A Defense of Origen together. When Pamphilius died as a martyr, Eusebius, in gratitude, added to his name Pamphilii, becoming “Eusebius [son or disciple] of Pamphilius.”

Eusebius’s moderate stance on Arianism (a Christology denounced as heresy at Nicea) earned him temporary excommunication by a synod at Antioch in 324 or 325, but his zealous support of Constantine put the biggest blot on his legacy. Expounded in the celebratory Life of Constantine, this awed admiration also appears at the end of the Church History—where, to be fair, it makes some sense.

Eusebius had lived through terrible persecution. Constantine’s conversion to Christianity promised to end such horrors and begin an era unprecedented church strength. Eusebius’s support for the redeemed regime was a logical, albeit naive, reaction.

Eusebius enjoyed the emperor’s confidence and became the family’s chronicler. He also became bishop of Caesarea, apparently in 313, the year Constantine and Licinius issued the so-called “Edict of Milan” that granted toleration to Christians. Later, Eusebius was offered the more prominent episcopacy of Antioch, but he chose to stay in Caesarea. He died there sometime around 340.

Fighting for the Faith

With his great passion for learning, Eusebius became an accomplished exegete, theologian, apologist, orator, statesman, and, of course, historian. But while he is best known for his historical work, one could argue that he was above all an apologist. His biblical works respond to problems in the text of Scripture, and his historical works argue for the truth of Christianity.

One of Eusebius’s major apologetic works, Preparation of the Gospel, uses quotations from Greek authors to refute the mythology, oracles, and philosophy of paganism. Another apologetic work, Proof of the Gospel, shows that Christianity continues the religion of the Old Testament patriarchs and fulfills Judaic prophecy.

Apologetics motivated Eusebius’s early historical work, the Chronicle, as well. In it Eusebius lines up the principal events of universal and sacred history in order to prove that the Jewish people were older than other peoples. The works in praise of Constantine—the Life of Constantine, Praise of Constantine, and Constantine’s Address to the Assembly of the Saints—may be considered historical works but also have an apologetic thrust.