Making Christian History: Eusebius of Caesarea and His Readers

Description

Known as the "Father of Church History," Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and the leading Christian scholar of his day. His Ecclesiastical History is an irreplaceable chronicle of Christianity&;s early development, from its origin in Judaism, through two and a half centuries of illegality and occasional persecution, into a new era of tolerance and favor under the Emperor Constantine. In this book, Michael J. Hollerich recovers the reception of this text across time. As he shows, Eusebius adapted classical historical writing for a new "nation," the Christians, with a distinctive theo-political vision. Eusebius's book left its mark on Christian historical writing from late antiquity to the early modern period, across linguistic, cultural, political, and religious boundaries, until its encounter with modern historicism and postmodernism. Making Christian History demonstrates Eusebius's vast influence throughout history, not simply in shaping Christian culture but also as his work itself has become contested territory as that culture has been constantly reevaluated, reformed, and resisted over the past 1,700 years. Cover Making Christian History Dedication Title Copyright CONTENTS Abbreviations Acknowledgments 1. Eusebius and His Ecclesiastical History Eusebius as Transitional Figure Eusebius’s Historical Diptych: The Chronicle and the Ecclesiastical History What Is “Ecclesiastical History,” and Why Did Eusebius Write One? An Untrodden Path? Eusebius’s Predecessors 2. The Reception of the Ecclesiastical History in a Christian Empire The Manuscript Tradition as Reception History Translations and Continuations in Antiquity Eusebius’s First Continuators: Rufinus of Aquileia and Gelasius of Caesarea Eusebius’s Ancient Greek Continuators: An Ecclesiastical History Canon 3. The Reception of the Ecclesiastical History in the Non-Greek East Syriac Christianity: Historiography, Doctrinal Conflict, and Regime Change Armenia: Adapting Eusebius on the Borderland of Rome and Persia Eusebius in the Coptic Tradition: From Ecumenical to Ethnic Ecclesiastical History 4. The Reception of the Ecclesiastical History in the Latin West The Ancient Latin Tradition after Rufinus “National” Ecclesiastical History in the Middle Ages Bede and Ecclesiastical History in Anglo-Saxon England: Eusebius’s Heir and Critic Eusebius and Frankish Identity: The Cult of the Book A Norman Ecclesiastical History: Orderic Vitalis Ecclesiastical History in a Corpus Christianum 5. Eusebius in Byzantium John Malalas and His Chronicle The Paschal Chronicle George Synkellos and Theophanes: At the Summit of Byzantine Chronography Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopulus and the Return of Ecclesiastical History 6. Eusebius Rediscovered in Early Modernity: Renaissance, Reformation, and the Republic of Letters The Ecclesiastical History and Renaissance Humanism: Humanist Historiography and Sacred History Eusebius in a Confessional Age: From Humanist Retrieval to the Weaponizing of Ecclesiastical History Eusebius in the Republic of Letters 7. Reading Eusebius in Modernity and Postmodernity: The Ecclesiastical History in Modern Scholarship In Search of Patrons: The Ecclesiastical History and Its Modern History of Publication Critical Reception I: Secular Critical Reception II: Religious and Theological Ecclesiastical History and Its Future Bibliography Index