Reconstructing the Second Century in the Fourth: The Curious Case of Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History
This article examines how Eusebius of Caesarea constructs a textualised vision of second-century Christian history in his Ecclesiastical History, not simply as a recorder of facts, but as a curator of Christian memory. Rather than offering a neutral chronicle, Eusebius produces what Aaron Johnson h...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2025
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| In: |
Neotestamentica
Year: 2025, Volume: 59, Issue: 3, Pages: 425-459 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Eusebius, Caesariensis 260-339, Historia ecclesiastica
/ Canon
/ Christianity
/ Ethnogenesis
/ Historiography
/ Martyrdom
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| IxTheo Classification: | KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article examines how Eusebius of Caesarea constructs a textualised vision of second-century Christian history in his Ecclesiastical History, not simply as a recorder of facts, but as a curator of Christian memory. Rather than offering a neutral chronicle, Eusebius produces what Aaron Johnson has termed a "textualised history"—a layered and carefully assembled compilation of quotations, documents, martyr acts, apologies, and heresiological fragments that together function as a pedagogical archive. This method of historical construction serves theological, polemical, and canonical purposes, positioning Eusebius as both historian and author of a Christian ethnosdefined through selectivity and strategic citation. Eusebius's quotations did not operate merely as historical data, but as rhetorical instruments that discipline the past, instruct the present, and legitimise orthodox identity. His method aligns with broader late antique encyclopaedic trends in which knowledge is stabilised through the arrangement and canonisation of authoritative texts. In this sense, Eusebius creates a "meta-canon" of second-century Christianity—an interpretive superstructure that governs which voices are preserved, which are excluded, and how they are to be read. The article thus contends that Eusebius's historiographical method is not merely descriptive but formative: it constructs a usable past through theological narration, biblical typology, and selective preservation. His vision of the second century becomes a didactic space wherein orthodoxy is embodied in episcopal succession, martyrdom is reframed as moral endurance, and heresy is discursively othered through demonological and ethnological language. The result is a creation narrative of Christian origins, structured by division, naming, and exclusion—echoing the very logic of Genesis. Eusebius does not simply recount Christian history; he disciplines it. His textualisation of the second century thus becomes a model of historical memory that would shape ecclesiastical self-understandi for centuries to come. |
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| ISSN: | 2518-4628 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Neotestamentica
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/neo.2025.a978164 |
