Good day Worthy Knights,
In this part 28, represented on the RCC certificate: (Wikipedia)
Eusebius of Caesarea 2 of 2
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 labour of original research.
The literary productions of Eusebius reflect on the whole the course of his life. At first, he occupied himself with works on Biblical criticism. 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.
During the time of the Arian controversies, dogmatic questions came into the foreground. Christianity at last found recognition by the State. Lastly, Eusebius wrote eulogies in praise of Constantine. To all this activity must be added numerous writings of a miscellaneous nature, addresses, letters etc.
Onomasticon
The Onomasticon is his most important book. Scholars and students alike will find his work indispensable for an understanding the physical settings of the biblical narrative.
The Onomasticon compiled by Eusebius of Caesarea, “On the Place-Names” in the Holy Scripture, is a directory of places, a primary source that provides historical geographers with a contemporary knowledge of early 4th-century Palestine and Transjordan. It sits uneasily between the ancient genres of geography and lexicography, taking elements from both but serving as a member of neither. It is, according to many, the most important book for the study of the Land of Israel in the Roman period.
Eusebius’ description of his own method, who wrote: “I shall collect the entries from the whole of the divinely inspired Scriptures, and I shall set them out grouped by their initial letters so that one may easily perceive what lies scattered throughout the text,” implies that he had no similar type of book to work from; his work being entirely original, based only on the text of the Bible.
Others have suggested that Eusebius had at his disposal early Roman maps of the Roman Empire with which to work and which allowed him to record the precise distances between locations in Roman miles. Needless to say, this innovation has been very useful to modern research. Of the approximate 980 Biblical and New Testament names of places contained in those works, Eusebius identifies some 340 with locations known in his own day and age.
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 items 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 (Παντοδαπὴ Ἱστορία – Pantodape historia) is divided into two parts. The first part, the Chronography, gives an epitome of universal history from the sources, arranged according to nations.
The second part, the Canons, 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 the 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, as well as 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.”
Note :
Eusebius of Caesarea is not to be confused with his contemporary Eusebius of Nicomedia.