Please read Book III of his History of the Church. What do you see in this book that would be particularly worth adding to an essay on the strengths/weaknesses of Eusebius as a historian? Was there anything you found particularly interesting in this book?
For strengths I would include records of succession for bishops and other leaders. He seems to have pretty good records of that. Although, there are some instances, such as with Philip the Apostle and Philip the Deacon, where he appears to combine people together or mix up people with the same name. There are also some dates that he gives that cannot be correct, and some family relationships that he confuses, such as if someone is a niece or wife of a nephew (though that is a minor issue).
ReplyDeleteSomething particularly interesting to me is his account from Josephus about omens of the fall of Rome. He cited the instances often as examples of fulfilled scripture, which is interesting, but I am not sure it is really credible. My brother is a big promoter of the idea that the Little Apocalypse was fulfilled with the fall of Rome, and while I think that idea deserves more looking into, reading Josephus' account hurts that argument more than helps it, in my opinion.
First, the account of a lamb being born to a cow, I think would not be a sign that God would use. Not only is there no corroborating documents or evidence, but it seems contrary to God's nature. God made everything after it's own kind (Gen. 1, Matthew 7:16). Among other things, there is also a comet that supposedly stayed lit above the city for a year as a sign. I feel like we would have more evidence for that if that was the case. Surely if it was there for a year, others would have written about it or at least more people would remember it. Caesar's Comet in 44 BC only lasted seven days, but it was well documented by several sources.
The thing from that section that I am more inclined to believe is the part that claims there were armies fighting in the sky. I think this is the most probable of the signs mentioned because the Roman historian Tacitus does record this same occurrence in his work, "Histories." He could have been using information he read from Josephus when he wrote his work, so I wouldn't consider the second account proof, but it does make this event seem more credible than the others. I would like to stick to the Biblical president of requiring two or three witnesses, but unfortunately, this is the best we've got, at least for the time being.
"In the course of my narrative I will carefully indicate which of the ecclesiastical authors in each period used any of the disputed books, what they said about the canonical and accepted Scriptures, and their comments about those that are not."
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This is a good sign of a detailed historian and a seeker of truth. He's willing to look honestly at what the earliest believers thought and believed about the canon of Scripture. Even if it went against his what he had previously thought.
Something I also enjoy is that he doesn't disregard Scripture as a historical source. He will quote back to Jesus' own words a lot of the time. He takes it as something historical and not fan fiction.
One weakness I noticed while reading Book 3 is that Eusebius has a tendency to get sidetracked. While writing about the line of succession for bishops, he then launched into his list of what books the church had used as canonical, disputed, spurious, or straight up heretical. After he finished his list, he launched back into his succession of bishops as if nothing had happened.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do like is that he tells it like it is for the books considered heretical. He says that he won't even waste his time on the books, as no early church figure had used the books and they stand in contrast to the doctrine formed by the canonical works. He doesn't beat around the bush, he just says it like it is.
I don't know if this is either a weakness or something I found interesting, but I found him side tracking into talking about which apostles being married was extremely funny.
Eusebius is pretty much on his own in terms of sources to pull from, so when he does include information on figures like John, early bishops, or canonical book development, it's probably gonna be pretty good even if it's not always perfectly reliable or laid out. In book 3 he makes sure to mention traditions from early writers like Papias and Hegesippus, from whom we get important information like the death of James, the election of his successor Symeon, heresies, and more. Eusebius' layout of his works could, in my uneducated opinion, have a bit more continuity. The clearest example of this to me is when he all of a sudden transitions from bishops to talking about canonical book development. I actually found it funny how he transitioned by saying, " At this point is may be appropriate to list the New Testament writings already referred to" (p 100), since I personally did not see what made it such an appropriate time. However, without Eusebius we probably wouldn't have access to any of these materials as they may have been further diluted over time before someone else decided to make an account. I do think the reliability of some of his information is iffy. The line of leadership after the apostles seems to be pretty unified according to Hegesippus, which may paint an idealized picture of unity rather than a messier one. I'm not saying Hegesippus is wrong, but it seems impossible to know for sure how succession went, considering how many issues we can see for early church development from the NT. Overall I think book 3 continues to solidify Eusebius as a stellar preserver of history, even if he sometimes has to be read with caution.
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